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FRANCE, 

SOCIAL,    LITERARY,    POLITICAL 


BY  HENRY  LYTTON  BULWER,  M.P. 


Nature  and  truth  are  the  same  everywhere,  and  reason  shows  them  everywhere  alike.  But  the 
accidents  and  other  causes  which  give  rise  and  growth  to  opinions,  both  in  speculation  and  prac- 
tice, are  of  infinite  varieiy. — Bolini^hroke  mi  the  true  Use.  of  Retirement  and  Study, 

Reverere  conditores  Deos,  numina  Deorum.  Reverere  gloriam  veterem,  et  hanc  ips^in  senectu- 
tem  quse  in  homiae  venerabilis,  in  urbibus  sacra  est.  Sit  apud  te  honor  antiquati,  sit  ingentibus 
facti,  sit  fabulis  quoque,  nihil  ex  cujusquam  dignitate,  nihil  ex  liberiatc,  niliil  etiam  ex  jactations 
decerpseris. — Pliniut  Maximo  Teus  S. 


IN     TWO     VOLUMES. 
VOL.    I. 


TTEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FRANELIN    SQUARE. 

1857. 


^ 


BOOK    I. 

THE    CAPITAL.    , 


"  Tnmsportons  I'Angleterre  au  milieu  de  la  Franc©.*' 
Vol.  L— B 


O  /^  m  » -fe  u»j  — 


DEDICATION 


B.    GILES    KING,   Esq. 


My  dear  King, 

We  have  such  few  opportunities  afforded  us  of  testi- 
fying esteem,  that  I  feel  inexpressible  gratification  in 
thus  being  able  to  give  a  very  unworthy  token  of  those 
sentiments  with  which  a  long  acquaintance  has  inspired 
me  for  you — nor  is  this  all :  the  present  dedication  is 
not  only  an  ordinary  tribute  paid  to  friendship,  it  is  a 
tribute  paid  to  a  friend  whom  I  esteem  as  much  for  his 
public  principle  as  his  private  worth.  And  indeed  it 
is  no  small  consolation,  in  thus  entering  upon  a  new 
career,  to  feel  that  whatever  may  be  my  fate  as  an 
author,  there  must  still  remain  to  me  the  pleasure  and 
the  honour  with  which  I  shall  ever  look  back  to  the 
temporary  connection  of  my  name  with  yours.  This 
is  not  said,  my  dear  King,  in  the  form  and  customary 
spirit  of  dedicatory  addresses,  but  with  the  deepest 
and  sincerest  sentiments  of  regard  and  affection. 
Yours  most  truly, 
HENRY  LYTTON  BULWER. 

Hill-street,  September  3,  1834. 


CONTENTS 


THE   FIRST    VOLUME. 


rAGB 

Introduction 9 

Analysis  of  France 14 


BOOK   I. 

THE  CAPITAL 

Paris. — Entry 27 

Boulevards 30 

Palais  Royal 35 

The  Quais  and  the  Tuileries 44 

Divisions 50 

The  Capital,  now  and  formerly 52 

THE  CHARACTERISTICS. 

Politeness 71 

Gallantry 80 

Vanity 90 

Wit     ..... 101 

Gayety  and  Frivolity 112 

Crime      . 124 

1* 


«     •       «       t  c 

4  •   •    «      'cb^ifNW. ' ' 

BOOK   11. 

HISTORICAL  CHANGES. 

PAGE 

Old  R6ginie 155 

Revolution  of  Eighty-nine 163 

The  Directory       174 

The  Consulate  and  the  Empire 176 

Appendix — Containing  extracts  from  M.  Chabrol's 
Reports  as  to  the  Population,  &c.  of  Paris,  and 
extracts  from  Dr.  Bowring's  Report  as  to  the 
rate  of  Workmen's  Wages,  &o.     ......  191 


INTRODUCTION. 


It  is  now  very  nearly  four  years  ago — when  the 
old  dynasty  went  once  more  into  exile — that  I  first 
thought  of  writing  a  work  on  France  :  not  altogether 
a  work  such  as  many  which  have  appeared,  skimming 
lightly  over  the  surface  of  things,  and  pretending 
merely  to  be  the  result  of  a  six  weeks'  residence  at 
Paris  ;  but  a  work  which  in  describing  the  present 
would  connect  it  with  the  past — which,  in  speaking 
of  what  is  daily  and  accidental,  would  separate  it  from 
what  ages  have  sanctioned,  and  distant  ages  are  likely 
to  see, — a  work  which,  in  showing  the  effect  which 
time,  and  laws,  and  accident  produce  upon  the  char- 
acter of  a  people,  would  also  show  the  manner  in 
which  the  character  of  a  people  traverses  time,  enters 
into  laws,  dominates  over  accident.  I  thought  such  a 
work  might  be  useful  in  England :  because  it  might 
at  once  teach  us  where  we  could  or  could  not  imitate 
our  neighbours  ;  and  at  the  same  time  convince  us 
that  a  wise  imitation  does  not  consist  in  copying  the 
laws  or  the  customs  of  another  nation,  but  in  adapting 
those  laws  and  customs  that  we  wish  to  imitate  to  om 
own  dispositions. 

I  thought  such  a  work  might  be  useful ;  I  thought 
too  such  a  work  might  be  interesting,  and  that  in  order 
to  make  it  useful  and  interesting,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  make  it  amusing.  The  English  writer  of  the 
present  century  is  placed  in  man}'-  respects  in  the 
same  situation  as  the  French  writer  of  the  last.  I  do 
not  say  that  he  has  the  same  instruction  to  give,  but 
A  3 


10 


••••••  iNTRVX>UOT^ON.  •' 


he  has  in  the  same  manner  to  render  instruction 
popular  :  and  this  I  trust  will  be  my  excuse  for  having 
sometimes  adopted  a  lighter  tone,  and  introduced 
lighter  matter  into  the  following  volumes  than  the 
gravity  and  importance  of  their  subject  might  seem  to 
require. 

It  is  some  time  ago,  then,  since  I  first  conceived 
the  project  of  this  book — but  I  had  not  long  proceeded 
to  collect  the  materials  for  my  undertaking  before  I 
abandoned  the  pursuit.  Carried  along  in  the  active 
rush  of  passing  events — called  upon  to  consider  and 
to  take  an  humble  part  in  advancing  a  great  revolution, 
far  greater  than  many  of  its  originators  supposed — a 
revolution  therefore  before  which  it  was  wise  to  pause 
ere  you  began  it,  as  it  is  wise  to  complete  it  now 
that  it  is  commenced — a  member  of  two  reforming^ 
parliaments,  and  one  reformed  parliament — obliged  to 
give  eight  or  nine  hours  at  the  veiy  least  to  daily  at- 
tendance in  the  House  of  Commons,  where  the  public 
affairs  of  the  week,  like  the  fabled  islands  of  the 
Mediterranean,  for  ever  flit  before  you,  and  for  ever 
vanish  at  your  approach, — I  soon  resigned  an  idea 
which  I  had  only  imperfectly  formed,  or  rather  reserved 
it  for  some  moment  of  literary  leisure,*  such  as  we 
always  hope  will  one  day  arrive  to  us.  In  a  visit,  how- 
ever, that  I  paid  to  Paris  last  year,  I  recurred  to  my 
former  thoughts,  and  pursued  with  some  diligence  my 
former  researches.  As  far  as  the  materials  with  which 
those  researches  furnished  me  are  concerned,  I  feel 
almost  convinced  that  I  obtained  sufficient  to  give  enter- 
tainment and  information  to  these  volumes.    But  no  one 


*  There  was,  let  me  add,  another  difficulty  thrown  in  my  way  by 
the  late  publication  of  a  near  and  dear  relation,  in  whose  literary 
success  no  one  more  deeply  sympathizes  than  myself.  This  publica- 
tion, being  also  in  part  a  political  one,  made  me  feel  that  where  our 
opinions  differed  I  might  be  accused  of  intending  to  convey  a  censure, 
where  our  sentiments  agreed  I  might,  with  (iqual  justice,  be  accused 
of  aiming  at  an  imitation. 

But  the  difl'ereut  nature  of  oui  works  will,  I  think,  clear  me  from 
the  last  charge ;  wiiile  the  respect  which  I  bear  to  that  relation's 
ability,  and  the  very  sincere  affection  I  have  for  himself,  will  also,  I 
trust,  dehver  me  from  the  other. 


INTRODUCTION.  1 1 

can  be  more  sensible  than  I  am  that  1  have  not  profited 
as  I  ought  to  have  done  by  this  advantage.  The 
greater  part  of  these  pages  were  written  during  the 
heat  and  fever  of  a  London  existence  ;  many  of  them, 
begun  before  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  the  day  were 
commenced,  have  been  finished  on  returning  home 
after  a  late  parliamentary  division ;  and  thus,  inde- 
pendent of  those  faults  which  my  inability  would  have 
involuntarily  led  me  into,  there  are  others  for  which  I 
am  deeply  sensible  that  I  have  to  request  the  con- 
sideration of  the  reader,  and  the  indulgence  of  the 
critic. 

Still,  in  spite  of  these  faults  of  commission  and 
omission,  I  venture  to  hope  that  this  publication  is  not 
wholly  void  of  interest,  and  that  the  curious  and  good- 
natured  reader  may  find  in  it  wherewithal  to  repay  his 
labour. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  paint  France — France  as 
France  is — not  only  France  serious,  but  France  gay. 
I  have  endeavoured  to  paint  France  in  her  studies,  in 
her  crimes,  in  her  pleasures.  I  have  not  forsaken  the 
guinguette  for  the  ball-room,  and  I  have  not  been  with- 
out the  idea  of  connecting  the  ball-room  with  the 
prison.  In  political  as  in  domestic  life,  happiness  de- 
pends as  well  on  little  things  as  on  great  things ;  and 
so  saith  the  Scripture  most  sublimely  of  the  wisest  of 
men — "his  heart  was  as  the  sands  of  the  sea;"  "one 
of  the  largest  bodies,"  observes  Bacon,  "  consisting  of 
the  smallest  proportions." 

In  passing  from  one  subject  to  another  I  have  writ- 
ten desultorily,  and  for  this  reason : — it  has  always 
appeared  to  me,  that  ideas  are  most  naturally  intro- 
duced into  the  minds  of  others  in  the  form  and  order 
in  which  they  most  naturally  introduce  themselves 
into  our  own  minds — in  endeavouring  to  cut  and  to 
square,  and  to  press  and  to  clip  our  thoughts  into  certain 
set  fonns  and  proportions,  we  most  frequently  injure 
every  part  of  a  work  on  the  false  idea  of  improving 
the  whole,  and  make  our  book  on  the  plan  which  pre- 
sided over  Queen  Christina's  palace,  where  all  the 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

chef-d*oeuvres  of  Italy  were  systematically  mutilated  to 
the  form  and  size  of  an  apartment. 

I  have  written,  then,  desultorily,  and  hardly  checked 
my  disposition  to  do  so.  Nor,  however  in  some  re- 
spects 1  might  deem  it  desirable,  have  I  attempted  to 
throw  the  colouring  of  one  particular  idea  over  the 
whole  of  my  work,  nor  to  connect  every  effect  that  I 
have  observed  with  one  particular  cause.  Lideed  I 
confess,  for  my  own  part,  that  when  I  pursue  specula- 
tions of  this  kind,  I  advance  on  my  way  with  consider- 
able hesitation  and  doubt.  I  confess  that  I  am  one  of 
those  who  believe  there  to  be  so  many  chains,  visible 
and  invisible,  in  the  connection  of  human  affairs — so 
much  mystery  and  intricacy  in  the  government  of  hu- 
man actions,  that  oftentimes  I  hesitate  involuntarily 
even  at  the  moments  when  I  feel  most  inclined  to  be 
presumptuous. 

The  plague  breaks  out  at  Florence, — all  the  pious 
virgins,  the  religious  matrons,  and  even  the  sacred 
sisters  devoted  to  seclusion  and  God,  give  themselves 
up  in  a  species  of  voluptuous  delirium  to  the  wildest 
excesses  of  prostitution  and  debauch.  The  same  pes- 
tilence visits  Aix,  and  the  oldest  courtesans  of  the 
place  rush  in  pious  phrensy  to  the  hospitals,  and  de- 
vote themselves  to  the  certain  death  which  seizes  those 
who  attend  upon  the  sick.  Yet  a  religious  education 
does  not  lead  necessarily  to  debauch — nor  are  brothels 
the  best  seminaries  of  charity  and  Christian  zeal. 

What  happened  once  might  never  happen  again.  It 
forms  no  ground  for  a  theory ;  it  is  interesting  as  a 
fact. 

I  will  now  allude  to  one  difficulty  I  have  laboured 
under  in  this  work — a  difficulty  whicfi  I  particularly 
feel,  and  which  if  I  had  been  writing  of  England  I 
should  have  been  spared.  In  speaking  of  our  o^vn 
country,  we  speak  in  a  spirit  which  induces  us  to  be- 
lieve that  we  may  take  any  liberty  we  think  proper 
with  our  friends.  We  are  at  home,  and  we  have  the 
privilege  of  relationship.  But  it  is  different  in  a  for- 
eign land.     Received  as  a  stranger,  but  received  with 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

kindness  and  hospitality— the  seal  of  courtesy  is 
placed  upon  our  lips,  and  we  shrink  with  becoming 
disgust  from  being,  or  seeming,  guilty  of  ingratitude. 
If  then  I  could  suspect  myself  of  any  of  that  national 
hostility  which  might  induce  me  to  find  lumecessary 
fault  with  my  hosts — if  I  disliked  the  French  because 
they  wear  wooden  shoes,  or  if  I  despised  them  because 
they  do  not  live  upon  roast-beef  and  plum-pudding — 
if  I  felt  that  kind  of  antipathy  to  them  which  I  have  re- 
marked among  some  of  my  countrymen — if  I  thought 
all  their  women  had  the  features  of  Calmucks,  and  ail 
their  men  the  principles  of  Count  Fathom — if  I  deemed 
Regent-street  infinitely  superior  to  the  Boulevards, 
and  the  Louvre  a  hovel  by  the  side  of  St.  James's  pal- 
ace,— if  I  believed  all  this,  and  even  believed  it  con- 
scientiously, I  should  hesitate  long,  after  the  kindness 
I  have  experienced,  before  I  stated  my  opinions.  But 
France  to  me  is  a  country  in  which  repose  many  of 
my  affections.  I  visited  it  young — its  scenes  and  its 
people  are  connected  with  some  of  my  earliest,  and 
therefore  with  some  of  my  dearest,  recollections.  1 
never  touch  its  soil  but  the  green  memory  of  olden 
times  rises  up  around  me.  Some  of  those  whom  1 
have  most  valued — some  of  those  whom  I  have  most 
loved,  link  me  with  the  land  of  which  I  write,  and  in- 
fuse into  my  thoughts  a  colour  which  is  assuredly  not 
the  hue  of  jealousy  or  aversion.  I  ask  myself,  then, 
whether  the  opinions  of  a  friend,  even  if  they  are  de- 
livered with  impartiality — of  a  friend  who,  seeing  with 
foreign  eyes,  gazes  as  it  were  through  a  magnifying 
glass  on  all  around  him,  and  discerns  at  once  both 
beauties  and  blemishes  which  are  imperceptible  to 
persons  who,  imder  the  influence  of  long  habit  and 
custom,  regard  without  observing — I  ask  myself  whe- 
ther the  opinions  of  such  a  friend,  even  if  they  do  not 
always  contain  praise,  ought  to  be  considered  as  any 
derogation  from  that  amity  which  he  is  bound  to  feel, 
and  very  distant  from  forswearing.  It  is  said  of  Her- 
cules (a  great  reverer  of  the  gods)  that  Avhen  he  saw 
the  statue  of  Adonis  in  the  temple  of  Venus,  he  ex- 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

claimed  with  indignation,  "  Nil  sacri  es."  And  so 
surely  there  are  objects  which  a  traveller  may  venture 
to  criticise,  even  when  he  finds  them  in  a  nation  which 
he  is  most  inclined  to  respect. 

But  enough  of  this — the  preceding  pages  have  been 
written  too  much  for  the  sake  of  the  author — the  few 
introductory  remarks  I  have  to  add  will  be  addressed 
to  the  reader  only — and  I  imagine  that  he  may  like  to 
have  submitted  to  him  a  rough  sketch  of  the  form,  and 
a  brief  summary  of  the  materials,  of  the  country  to 
which  he  is  about  to  be  introduced. 


A  SHORT  ANALYSIS  OF  FRANCE. 

The  extent  of  France  from  north  to  south,  from  Dun- 
kirk to  Perpignan,  is  575  French  miles ;  its  breadth 
from  east  to  west,  from  Strasbourg  to  Brest,  is  499 
French  miles  ;  its  total  superficies  53,000  hectares  ;* 
its  population  in  1833,  32,560,934  inhabitants.!  This 
population  is  divided  between  the  towns  and  the  coun- 
try in  the  following  manner: — 

35,384  little  communes  contain       .      .      .    23.725,809  inhabitants. 
1,620  towns,  from  1,500  to  50,000  inhabitants, 

contain 7,209,855 

8  great  cities,  from  50,000  inhabitants, 

and  upwards,  contain^       .      .      .      1,625,270 


*  A  hectare  is  equal  to  two  acres,  one  rood,  thirty-five  two-fifths 
perches  English  measure. 

t  In  France  the  population  increases  every  sixteen  years  by  one- 
tenth.  The  proportion  of  male  to  female  births  is  as  sixteen  to 
fifteen,  and  not  as  twenty-two  to  twenty-one— a  proportion  anciently 
established.  The  average  of  life,  calculated  fifty  years  ago  at  twenty- 
eight  years,  is  now  calculated  at  thirty-five. 

}  Paris 774,338  ^ 

Lyons 292,370        ,  ^„^  „^„ 

Marseilles 145,115  |      iSo^? 

Bordeaux 104,467  .       ''209,65j 

Rouen 88,076  f  23,725,809 

Nant«s 87,198     ~Z77Zr~~  _,  ,  , 

Lille 69,073      32,560,934  Total. 

69,630, 


INTRODUCTION.  16 

SO  that  33,725,809  may  be  considered  the  agricultural 
population,  and  8,835,125  the  population  devoted  to 
other   jiiirKiiits — a  result  entirely  different  from  that 
which  ho  population  of  Great  Britain  gives  us.* 
The  division  of  France,  according  to  law,  is  into 

86  departments. 
363  arondissements. 
2,835  cantons. 
37,012  communes. 

The  division  which  nature  seems  to  have  established 
is  of  a  different  description  :  for  nature  seems  to  have 
divided  France  into  four  great  plains,  round  which  are 
grouped  other  parts  less  important,  and  which  amalga- 
mate less  with  tlie  general  character  of  the  kingdom. 
Each  of  these  plains  or  platforms  is  confined,  as  it 
were,  by  a  net  of  streams,  rivulets,  and  rivers,  which, 
intersecting  it  in  every  direction,  keep  it  at  once  in 
communication  with  itself,  and  separate  from  the  ad- 
joining districts. 

For  the  south  you  have  the  Saone  and  the  Rhone, 
which  meet  at  Lyons,  and  fall  into  the  Mediterranean 
between  Marseilles  and  Montpellier,  after  having  re- 
ceived into  their  bed  all  the  rivers  and  rivulets  which 
flow  through  this  division. 

For  the  north  you  have  the  Se'ine,  communicating 
between  Paris  and  Rouen. 

For  the  east  the  Loire,  with  its  various  tributary 
streams,  falling  into  the  sea  beneath  Nantes. 

And,  lastly,  you  have  the  Gironde,  forming  the  far- 
ther great  division,  which  has  always  had  its  peculiar 
characteristics. 

*  In  England,  as  appears  by  census  of  1821, 

1,350.239  families  engaged  in  trade  and  manufacture. 
978,656  in  agriculture. 

612,488  in  other  objects. 

2,941,383  families. 

46  per  cent,  in  trade. 

33  in  agriculture. 

21  other  pursuits. 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

Round  these  four  great  fluvial  divisions  are,  to  the 
south — the  little  basins  of  the  Herault  and  the  Aude  ; 
to  the  west — the  Landes,  so  different  from  the  rest 
of  France,  the  country  watered  by  the  Charente,  La 
Vendee,  and  that  ancient  Brittany,  with  its  old  man- 
ners, its  peculiar  language,  and  peculiar  history ;  to 
the  north — Normandy  and  the  basin  of  the  Orne  ;  and 
to  the  north-east — that  region  bordering  on  the  Rhine, 
only  half  French,  where  three  millions  of  men  still 
talk  German  and  Flemish — region  of  which  France 
covets  the  entire  possession,  and  over  which  Germany 
will  not  permit  the  progress  of  France — region  which 
must  be  attacked  and  defended  in  the  next  war  that 
breaks  out  in  Europe. 

Here  then  is  France  as  divided  by  pursuits,  as  di- 
vided by  law,  as  divided  by  nature.  Another  division 
exists  in  cultivation ;  and  the  53,000,000  hectares 
which  constitute  her  surface  are  thus  distributed : — 

Hectares. 
Land  in  ordinary  agricultural  cultivation  -      22,818,000 

In  vines 2,000,000 

In  fruit  gardens,  vegetable  gardens,  olives, 

chestnuts,  hops,  i^c.  ...        -        2,500,000 

27,318,000 

Parks  and  shrubberies  ....  39,000 

Forests 6,522,000 

Meadows  and  pasturage.       ....  7,013,000 

Buildings 213,000 

Mines,  stone  pits,  and  turf  pit       -        -        -  35,000 

Canals 900,000 

Roads,  rivers,  mountains,  and  rocks     -        -        6,555,000 

7,693,000 

Uncultivated 4,240,000 

53,035,000 


Thus,  out  of  the  53,000,000  of  hectares  capable  of  cul- 
tivation in  France, 

There  are  under  the  plough  or  spade  27,318,000 

In  forests 6,522,000 

Parks  and  shrubberies        -        -        -  39,000 

In  pasturage 7,013,000 

In  buildings,  niines,  roads,  &c.  -        -  7,693,000 

Uncultivated,  but      ....  4,24,0000 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

France  being  the  only  country  in  the  world,  perhaps, 
where  ten-elevenths  of  the  land  to  be  cultivated  is 
actually  under  cultivation.  But  at  the  same  time  there 
are  few  countries  where  upwards  of  22,000,000  of 
cultivated  hectares  (54,000,000  English  acres)  are 
hardly  sufficient  to  supply  food  to  32,000,000  of  in- 
habitants.* These  two  facts  are  connected  together 
by  another,  for  which  France  is  more  especially 
remarkable,  viz.  the  allotment  of  her  soil. 

There  are  in  France  about  10,000,000  of  distinct 
properties  charged  to  the  land  tax.  This  tax  is  about 
the  sixth  of  the  revenue  from  the  land.  Of  these 
10,000,000  properties  there  are  not  above  34,000,  as 
will  be  seen  by  the  annexed  table,  that  pay  upwards  of 
300  frs.,  i.  e.  that  yield  an  income  of  1,800  frs. — little 
more  than  70/. 

Number  of  properties  paying  from  _ 

300frs.to400frs.  34,^94 

400  500         -        17,028 

500  600         -  9,997 

600  700         -  6,379 

700  800         -  4,254 

800  900         -  3,044 

40,702 
2,495 


900 

1,000 

1,000 

1,500 

8,634 

1,500 

2,000 

3,313 

2,000 

3,000 

832 

3,000 

4,000 

861 

4,000 

5,000 

939 

14,579t 

Properties,  however,  distinct  in  their  taxation,  may 
belong  to  the  same  proprietor.  M.  Dupin,  taking 
this  union  of  properties  into  consideration,  reckons 
5,000,000  of  landed  proprietors ;  and  from  the  best 
sources  from  which  I  can  derive  information,  there 
would  be  1,400  or  1,500  persons  paying  from  4,000  to 
6,000  francs,  i.  e.  receiving  a  landed  income  of  from 
24,000  to  30,000  francs  a  year,  instead  of  939,  which 
is  the  number  of  distinct  properties  paying  that  sum, 


*  See  impc«,ts. 

t  Taken  tc<fta  the  returns  of  the  different  prefets. 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

or  yielding  that  income,  in  the  different  separate  de- 
partments.* 

This  division  of  land  produces  two  remarkable  effects 
on  the  government,  which  it  will  be  sufficient  here 
merely  to  point  out. 

In  the  first  place,  property  being  distributed  in  such 
small  portions  in  the  country,  twelve-fifteenths  of  the 
electors  are  from  the  towns,  though  three-fourths  of 
the  population  are,  as  I  have  said,  from  the  country. 

Secondly,  the  want  of  any  wealthy  class  in  the 
nation  invests  in  the  state  much  of  the  power,  and 
much  of  the  business,  which  in  more  aristocratical 
countries  would  be  performed  by  individuals.  The 
demand,  then,  which  the  landed  nobility  make  for  a 
lower  suffrage  is  a  demand  natural  to  their  situation, 
interests,  and  position,  while  the  force  and  centraliza^ 
tion  of  the  French  government  is  the  consequence 
of  that  with  «vhich  it  is  sometimes  considered  incon- 
sistent, viz.  the  equality  that  exists  among  the  French 
people. 

There  are  upwards  of  32,000,000  of  people  then  in 
France — distributed  between  the  towns  and  the  country. 
In  the  country  there  are  10,000,000  landed  properties 
paying  the  land  tax,  and  5,000,000  at  least  landed  pro- 
prietors. In  the  towns  there  are  1,118,600  persons 
exercising  trade  and  paying  for  a  patent.  Add  these 
5,000,000  of  landed  proprietors  and  these  1,118,500 
persons  exercising  trade  by  patent  together — 

5,000,000 
1,118,500 


6,118,500 


Suppose  there  to  be  four  persons  to  the  family  of 
each  of  these  proprietors  and  tradespeople,  or  mer- 
chants— i.  e.  patentees — and  you  have  24,474,000 
persons  possessing  property  in  land  or  in  trade.  To 
this  number  again  add  the  persons  possessing  property 

*  Tiiej?roprietora  of  forest  lands  are  not  included  in  this  calculation. 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

on  mortgage,  or  in  the  funds,*  and  who  do  not  come 
under  either  of  the  above  denominations — and  amid 
this  immense  mass  of  proprietors,  shop-keepers,  fund- 
holders,  &c.  behold  400,000  soldiers,!  55,000  place- 
men, and  200,000  electors ! 

Such  is  the  population  of  France  ;  its  total  revenue 
is  estimated  at  about  8  milliards — 

Agriculture        ...         5  milliards. 
Commerce  and  manufactures      3    ditto. 

Total        8 

Of  this  there  is  only  696,282,132  frs.  (1832)  ex- 
ported, the  principal  exports  being  stuffs,  and  felts, 
and  drinks ;  and  the  principal  countries  exported  to 
being  England,  the  United  States,  and  Switzerland. 

The  imports  in  the  same  year  amounted  to 
652,872,341    frs.      The  principal   articles    imported 

*  In  1824  the  total  amount  of  the  interest,  at  five  per  cent.,  on  the 
national  debt  was  197,014,892  frs.,  divided  as  foUows — 

Holders  of  stock.             Amount  of  stock.  Total. 

10,000  from          10  to          50  frs.  310,000  frs. 

36,000                   50              99  2,750,000 

76,000                  100         1,000  30,600,000 

15,000               1,000         4,999  42.500,000 

5,000               5,000         9,999  27,290,000 

10,000            10,000  and  upwards  36,550,000 


152,000  140,000,000  frs. 

Goldsmith's  Statistics  of  France. 

t  The  standing  army  of  France  in  1833  consisted  of  406,399  men 
fit  for  active  service,  and  93,509  horses ; — thus  divided :  staff,  2,586 
oflficers ;  gen-d'armes,  622  officers,  15,277  s\ibalterns  and  privates,  and 
12,260  horses;  89  regiments  of  infantry,  9,864  officers,  263,077  subal- 
terns and  privates ;  52  regiments  of  cavalry,  of  which  24  are  heavy, 
2,885  officers,  51,043  subalterns  and  privates,  and  45,665  horses;  ll 
regiments  of  artillery,  1,190  officers,' 32,594  subalterns  and  privates, 
29,689  horses ;  3  regiments  of  engineers,  247  officers,  7,803  subalterns 
and  privates,  and  769  horses.  Baggage  train,  127  officers,  4,364 
subalterns  and  privates,  and  5,126  horses.  Veteran  corps,  466 
officers,  12,841  subalterns  and  privates. 

The  naval  force  of  France  afloat  in  1833  consisted  of  289  vessels 
of  various  descriptions;  namely,  33  ships  of  the  line,  39  frigates,  17 
corvettes,  9  advice  boats,  54  brigs,  8  bomb-ships,  6  gam-brigs,  18  gal- 
liots and  cutters,  36  flotilla-boats,  17  steam-ships,  ^  scoops,  transports, 
and  yachts. 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

being  skins,  other  animal  matter,  and  farinaceous 
aliments ;  the  principal  countries  imported  from  being 
the  United  States,  Sardinia,  and  Belgium. 

The  commercial  shipping  entering  and  leaving  the 
ports  of  France  for  the  year  1832  : — 


Tonnafre. 

[nward :    83,663  French 

-       2,873,520 

5,651  Foreign 

714,638 

Outward:  82,134  French 

-      2,768,307 

4,634  Foreign 

161,704 

The  duties  levied  were — export  duty,  1,421,477; 
import  duty,  133,174,809  frs. 

No  one  fact  can  point  out  the  system  of  French 
commerce  so  clearly  as  that  of  16,808,970  frs.  being 
paid  (1831)  on  84,218,244  frs.  exported. 

The  manufacture  most  natural  to  France,  and  for 
which  the  French  are  the  most  suited,  is  perhaps  the 
manufacture  of  silk.  We  find  from  the  Archives 
Statistiques  of  the  department  of  the  Rhone,  the 
average  of  raw  material  employed  in  the  silk  manu- 
factories of  Lyons  amounts  to  65,000,000  francs ;  of 
which  30,000,000  francs  are  imported,  and  25,000,000 
francs  are  home  grown.  The  following  have  been  the 
facilities  in  this  manufacture  during  the  space  of  forty 
years.  In  1786,  there  were  in  Lyons  and  the 
neighbourhood,  15,000  looms ;  in  1789,  there  were 
7,000;  in  1800,  there  were  3,500;  from  1801  to  1802 
there  were  10,720 ;  in  1827,  there  were  30,000. 

This  manufacture,  then,  seems  to  have  been  reduced 
by  the  Re  volition  more  than  one-fourth  ;  and  aug- 
mented during  the  Restoration  by  two-thirds.* 

There  has  been  an  exposition  this  year  of  the 
industry  of  France,  the  details  of  which  are  in  every 
way  interesting  to  those  who  trace  the  character  of 
a  people  even  in  their  manufactures.  But  this  is  not 
the  place  where  I  can  enter  at  any  length  into  a  state- 
ment on  a  consideration  of  the  facts  connected  with 
this  subject.     Neither  have  I  space  to  add  many  of 

*  In  1831,  when  the  sale  in  this  manufacture  decreased  one-half, 
i.e.  from  45,835,257  frs.  to  26,981,303  frs.,  its  export  sale  remained  the 
same. 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

the  interesting  details  relative  to  French  commerce 
which  are  to  be  found  in  Doctor  Bowring's  reports. 
The  expenses  of  the  country  according  to  the 
budget  of  1832*  amounted  to  about  1,106,618,270 
frs. :  of  which  ordinary  expenses  962,971,270 — extra- 
ordinary 143,647,000;  out  of  this  there  are  the  public 
debt,  amounting  to  344,854,303,t  and  the  expenses  of 
collecting,  &c.  114,759,433. 

The   public   departments    cost    586,786,672    frs. ; 
that  is, 

Minister  of  justice  -  -  -  18,374,700 

of  foreign  affairs      -  -  -  6,939,700 

of  public  instruction  and  worship         -  36,327,883 

of  home  department  -  -  3,889,600 

of  commerce  and  pubhc  works  -  122,894,589 

of  war       ....  309,030,400 

of  marine  -  -  -  65,172,200 

of  finances  -  -  24,150,900 


586,786,672 


The  expenses  of  religion,  as  apart  from  the  minis- 
ter of  public  instruction,  are  33,507,600  frs.,  i.  e. 
65,000  frs.  to  the  Jews,  750,000  frs.  to  the  Protest- 
ants, the  rest  to  the  Catholics.  The  Catholic  religion 
alone  cost  before  the  revolution  of  1789,  135,000,000 
frs. ;  100,000,000  frs.  more  than  all  the  religions  cost 
at  the  present  day. J 

*  1834 — 1,058,080,547  frs.  I  have  taken  1832  since  I  happen  to 
have  all  the  details  by  me  for  that  year,  and  there  is  no  very  great 
difference  in  the  amount. 

t  There  are  charged  upon  the  debt  pensions  to  the  amount 
of  56,038,500  frs.  The  Journal  Statistique  de  Paris  gives  the  follow- 
ing calculation  for  1833 ; — 

Pensions  included  in  debt  are  Persons.  Francs. 

To  the  peerage      -  -  -  J  28         1,504,000 

To  persons  for  civil  services  -  2,490         1,733,000 

To  persons  for  services  of  Julv         -  1 ,408  632,700 

To  the  clergy        -  -      '  -  28,186         4.602,469 

To  persons  for  military  services  127,011       46,683^221 

159,223  55,274,790 
X  The  analysis  of  the  French  budget,  and  its  comparison  with  our 
own,  is  a  subject  too  interesting  not  to  hope  that  I  shall  have  at  some 
time  the  opportunity  to  return  to  it ;  while  1  am  glad  to  find  this  occa 
sion  of  saying,  that  some  very  able  articles  which  appeared  in  the 
Spectator,  and  also  a  very  interesting  book  lately  published  by  Mr. 
Wells,  afford  much  greater  facility  for  doing  so  than  formerly  existed. 


22  INTRODUCTION. 

The  direct  taxes  of  France  amount  to  353,136,909. 
These  taxes  are,  on  the  land,  which  alone  amounts  to 
244,873,409  frs.,  on  the  person  and  on  furniture,  on 
houses  and  windows,  and  on  patents,  for  the  exercise 
of  trade. 


The  indirect  taxes  are  estimated  at  -        171,000,000 

Registry,  stamps,  &c.  at         -  -        198,225,000 

Customs  -  -  -        160,910,000 

The  post  brings  in  a  revenue  of  34,290,000  frs. : 
the  lottery  8,000,000.  The  total  aniount  from  differ- 
ent resources  1,116,323,058. 

According  to  a  calculation  given  in  the  Journal 
Statistique,  the  proportion  which  certain  of  these  taxes 
bear  to  the  population  of  France,  taking  her  population 
at  33  millions,  and  the  superficies  of  her  territory  at 
53,000,000  hectares,  i.  e.  nearly  27,000  square  leagues 
(French  leagues),  would  be — 

Sums  included    By  inhab.      By  squay«( 
Nature  of  Tax.  in  the  budget       and  by  league. 

on834.  year. 

frs.  frs|.  c.  frs.      c. 

Land              .               .             245,511,154  7  44  9,093    0 

Personal  and  moveable  property  51,165,000  1  55  1,895    0 

Doors  and  windows      -               26,830,000  0  81  993  70 

Patents          -               -               29,818,500  0  90  1,104  37 

Liquors           -                -                87,000,000  2  64  3,222  22 

Salt                -                -                62,200,000  1  88  2,303  70 

Tobacco        -               .               68,000,000  2    6  2,518  57 

Tax  on  letters              -               32,870,000  1    0  1,217  40 

Lotteries        -               -               32,000,000  0  98  1,185  18 


Total  635,394,654        19  26         23,533  14 

Average  per  department,  7,383,310  frs.,  and  1,222 
inhabitants  to  22  square  leagues. 

As  all  the  subjects  I  have  touched  upon  are  subjects 
to  which  I  hope  to  return,  and  on  which  I  hope  to 
speak  more  fidly,  I  shall  only  add  here  one  or  two 
more  words  on  the  state  of  education. 

There  are  in  France  45,119  schools  of  primary 
instruction,  and  the  government  now  pays  for  insttuc- 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

tion   800,000,000  frs. ;  whereas   it   paid   before  the 
revokition  of  July  only  800,000  frs. 

Provided  hy  law,  28th  June,  1833. 

Communes. — Every  commune  by  itself,  or  by  unit- 
ing itself  with  others,  must  have  one  school  of  pri- 
mary instruction. 

All  communes  which  have  more  than  6,000  in- 
habitants must  support  a  higher  school  for  superior 
instruction,  as  well  as  a  school  of  primary  instruction. 

All  the  poor  incapable  of  paying  for  their  education 
shall  be  educated  at  schools  of  primary  instruction 
gratis  ;  and  a  certain  number  selected  after  an  exami- 
nation shall  be  educated  gratis  at  the  schools  of  supe- 
rior instruction. 

Primary  or  elementary  instruction  consists  in 
reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  the  system  is  estab- 
lished by  law  of  weights  and  measures. 

Superior  instruction  comprises,  in  addition  to  these 
acquirements,  the  elements  of  geometry  and  its  appli- 
cation ;  the  elements  of  chymistry  and  natural  history, 
as  applied  to  the  ordinary  habits  and  pursuils  of  life  ; 
the  elements  of  history  and  geography,  and  more 
especially  the  history  and  geography  of  France. 

The  communal  schools  are  governed  by  a  commit- 
tee, consisting  of  the  mayor,  the  "  cure,"  and  the  chief 
inhabitants  of  each  commune  as  appointed  by  the  com- 
mittee of  arondissement. 

Arondissements. — In  each  arondissement  there  is  a 
committee  appointed  especially  to  watch  over  primary 
instruction. 

The  mayor  of  the  "  chef-lieu,"  the  "juge  de  paix," 
the  "  cure,"  a  minister  of  each  religion  recognised  b  r 
law  within  the  boundaries  of  the  arondissement,  a  school- 
master or  professor  named  by  the  minister  of  instruc- 

*  There  are  also  private  schools,  of  course,  but  of  these  I  say 
nothing.  No  man,  however,  can  be  a  schoolmaster  without  a  "  bre- 
vet" of  capacity  obtained  after  an  examination  conducted  according 
to  the  iiind  of  school  over  which  he  is  to  preside. 


24  INTRODUCTION. 

tion,  three  inhabitants  of  the  council  of  arondissement, 
any  members  of  the  council  general  of  the  department 
who  reside  within  the  arondissement,  shall  form  this 
committee. 

The  prefet  presides  at  all  the  committees  of  the 
department ;  the  sous-prefet  at  the  committees  of  the 
arondissement. 

Part  of  the  duty  of  the  committees  of  arondissement 
is  to  report  annually  to  the  minister  of  instruction  the 
state  of  the  different  schools  of  their  arondissement, 
and  to  suggest  any  improvement. 

Department. — Every  department  must  have  one 
"  school  normal"  (school  for  the  instruction  of  school- 
'masters),  either  by  itself  or  by  uniting  with  another 
department. 

SALARIES  OF  SCHOOLMASTERS. 

A  residence,  and  400  frs.  yearly,  for  masters  to  a 
superior  primary  school. 

A  residence,  and  200  frs.  yearly,  for  masters  to  a 
primary  school. 

FUNDS  FOR  SUPPORTING. 

The  government,  by  gifts  and  by  contributions. 

The  communes,  separately  or  collectively. 

The  departments. 

Founders,  donations,  and  legacies. 

In  cases  of  inefficiency  of  funds,  by  an  additional 
tax,  not  exceeding  three  centimes,  on  personal  and 
household  property. 

In  1832,  out  of  the  number  of  communes,  viz.  38,149,  there 

were  furnished  with  schools  -  -  26,710 

In  1829  ....  -  23.919 


Difference  2,791 

In  1832  there  were  schools  -  -  -  31,420 

In  1829  .....  27,365 


Difference  9,055 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


The  following  statement  is  extracted  from  the  Revue 
Encyclopedique,  which  gives,  as  its  authority,  an  Essay 
upon  the  Moral  Statistics  of  France,  lately  presented  to 
the  Academy  of  Sciences. 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  INSTRUCTION. 


Number 
of young 

men 

knowing 

DEPARTMENT.  how     to 

read  and 

write  out 

No.    of  of  every 

Older.  hundred. 

1  Meuse  (maximum)  -    -  74 

2  Doubs 73 

3  Jura 73 

4  Haute  Mame  ....  72 

5  Haut  Rhin 71 

6  Seine 71 

7  Hautes  Alpes  -    -    .    -  69 

8  Meurthe 68 

9  Ardennes 67 

10  Mame 63 

11  VoRQ-es 62 

12  Bl    Rhin 62 

13  Cote  d'Or 60 

14  Haute  Saone   -    -    -    -  59 

15  Aube 59 

16  Mozelle 57 

17  Seme  et  Oise  -    -    -    -  56 

18  Eure  et  Loire       -    -    -  54 

19  Seine  et  Mame    -    -    -  54 

20  Oise 54 

21  Hautes  Pyrenees      -    -  53 

22  Calvados 52 

23  Eure 51 

24  Aisne 51 

25  Corse 49 

Average  of  the  kingdom  38 


Number 
of  young 

men 

knowing 

DEPARTMENT.  how     tS 

road  and 

write  out 

No.   of  of  every 

Order.  hundred. 

62  Ard^che  (minimum)  -    -  27 

63  Indre  et  Loire      -    -    -  27 

64  Tarn  et  Garonne      -    -  25 

65  Vienne 25 

66  IleetVilaine  .    ...  25 

67  Loire  Inf6rieure    -    -    -  24 

68  Lot 24 

69  Var -  23 

70  Maine  et  Loire     -    -    -  23 

71  Creuse 23 

72  Haute  Loire    -    -    -    -  21 

73  Tarn 20 

74  Maine ,-20 

75  Mayenne 19 

76  Puy  de  Dome       -    -    -  19 

77  Arri^ge 18 

78  Dordogne 18 

79  Indre 17 

80  Cotes  duNord     -    -    -  16 

81  Finisterre 15 

82  Morbihan 14 

83  Cher 13 

84  Haute  Vienne      -    -    -  13 

85  Allier      • 13 

86  Corr^ge 12 


This  is  the  distribution  of  instruction  in  France : 
while  the  average  number  of  children  at  school  in 
the  United  States  and  different  states  of  Europe  in 
proportion  to  the  niunber  of  inhabitants  gives  this 
result : — 

Vol.  L—B 


26 


INTRODUCTION. 


United  States 
Pays  de  Vaud 
Wirtemberg    ■ 


Bavaria 

England 

Austria 

France 

Ireland 

Poland    . 

Portugal 

Russia 


scholar  on  4  inbab. 

6  — 

10  — 

• 11  — 

13  — 

20  — 

21  — 

78  — 

88  — 

367  — 


I  shall  now  proceed  without  further  delay  to  beg  the 
reader  to  follow  me  with  a  kindly  attention  from  the  in- 
troduction I  am  closing  to  the  book  that  is  commencing. 


PARIS. 


ENTRY. 

The  entrance  into  London  by  tho  Thames — The  entrance  into  Paria 
bjr  the  Champs  Elys^es— Passing  by  the  caserne,  intermingled 
with  cafes  ana  salons  Lit<5raire8 — The  Invalidesj  the  Tuilenes; 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies — The  Rue  de  Rivoli — The  universal 
movement  of  pleasure — Paris  not  the  climate  of  Paris— View  of 
an  autumnal  evening  from  the  Rue  de  la  Pais — Proverb  respecting 
the  Boulevards. 

It  is  by  the  Thames  that  the  stranger  should  enter 
London  .  . «  ^  the  broad  breast  of  the  great  river,  black 
with  the  huge  masses  that  float  upon  its  crowded  waters 
— the  tall  fabrics,  gaunt  and  drear,  that  line  its  melan- , 
choly  shores — the  thick  gloom  through  which  you  dimly 
catch  the  shadowy  outline  of  these  gigantic  forms — the 
marvellous  quiet  with  which  you  glide  by  the  dark 
phantoms  of  her  power  into  the  mart  of  nations— the 
sadness,  the  silence,  the  vastness,  the  obscurity  of  all 
things  around — prepare  you  for  a  grave  and  solemn 
magnificence:  full  upon  your  soul  is  shadowed  the 
sombre  character  of  "  the  golden  city  ;**  deep  into  your 
thoughts  is  breathed  the  genius  of  the  great  and 
gloomy  people,  whose  gloom  and  whose  greatness  are, 
perchance,  alike  owing  to  the  restless  workings  of  a 
stem  imagination.  Behold  St.  Katherine's  Docks,  and 
Walker's  Soap  Manufactory !  and  '♦  Hardy's  Shades  !" 
Lo !  there  is  the  strength,  the  industry,  and  the  plea- 
sure— the  pleasure  of  the  enterprising,  the  money- 
making,  the  dark-spirited  people  of  England.  "  Har- 
dy's Shades  /" — singular  appellation  for  the  spot  dedi- 
cated to  festivity ! Such  is  the  entrance  into 

London  by  the  Thames. 


3S  THE    CAFTTAJt, 

Let  ua  change  the  scene,  reader  !*-yoii  are  at  Paris* 
To  enter  Paris  with  advantage,  you  should  enter  it 
by  the  Champs  Ely  sees  :  visiting  for  the  first  time  the 
capital  of  a  military  nation,  you  should  pass  .under  the 
arch  built  to  commemorate  her  reign  of  victories. 
Coming  to  dwell  among  the  most  gay  and  light-hearted 
people  in  the  universe,  you  ought  at  once  to  rush  upon 
them  in  the  midst  of  their  festivities.  Enter  Paris  then 
by  the  Champs  Elysees  I  Here  are  the  monuments 
that  speak  to  you  of  the  great  soldiers  ;  and  here  the 
*'  guinguettes"  that  display  to  you  the  great  dancers  of 
Europe.  You  pass  by  the  old  gardens  of  Beaujon , 
you  find  the  "  caserne"  (and  this  tells  you  a  good  deal 
•of  the  nation  you  are  come  to  visit)  intermingled  with 
*^  cafes"  and  "  salons  literaires ;"  and  you  see  the  chairs 
under  the  trees,  and  the  open  spaces  left  for  the  ball ; 
and  if  you  stop  to  read  an  advertisement,  it  will  talk  of 
the  "  Chevaux  mecaniques,"  and  of  the  "  Bal  pare,** 
and  of  the  *'  Concert  des  Champs  Elysees," — and  the 
sun  shines  upon  the  golden  cupola  of  the  stately  Inva- 
iides,  and  on  the  glittering  accoutrements  of  the  saun- 
tering soldier ;  and  before  you  are  the  Tuileries,  with 
their  trees  and  terraces,  which  yonder  misplaced  mon- 
ument* cannot  quite  conceal ;  and  to  your  right  are  the 
Seine  and  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  to  your  left. 
the  Corinthian  architecture  of  those  tall  palaces  that 
form  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  The  tri-coloured  flag  floats 
from  the  gates  of  the  Royal  Gardens ;  the  military 
imiform,  mixed  up  with  the  colouring  of  every  passing 
group,  enriches  it  with  its  deep  blue  and  its  bright 
scarlet ;  the  movement  about  you  is  universal :  equi- 
pages of  all  kinds  are  passing  in  all  directions ;  the 
movement  is  universal,  but  differing  from  that  you  are 
accustomed  to  in  England, — the  movement  is  the 
movement  of  idleness  and  of  pleasure  ;  an  indescriba- 
ble mirth  reigns  in  all  you  see,  and  the  busy  gayety  of 
Paris  bursts  upon  you  with  the  same  effect  as  the  glad 
brightness  of  Italy.     The  people,   too,  have  all  the 

*  Tlie  Ear>T>tian  column. 


SRT&V.  09^ 

habits  of  a  people  of  the  sun ;  they  are  not  the  people 
of  one  stock  ;  collected  in  every  crowd  are  the  features 
and  the  feelings  of  divers  races  and  different  regions. 
In  Paris  you  are  not  in  the  climate  of  Paris — France 
is  brought  into  a  focus,  and  concentrated  in  the  capital 
you  find  all  the  varieties  that  vivify  the  many  provinces 
of  the  kingdom.  It  is  this  which  gives  a  city  of  the 
North  the  gracious  and  agreeable  aspect  of  the  South, 
and  transports  the  manners  that  are  legitimate  to  the 
olives  and  the  myrtles  of  Provence  to  the  elms  of  the 
Champs  Elysees  and  the  Boulevards.  London  is  the 
city  of  the  English,  as  Constantinople  is  the  city  of  the 
Turks.  Paris  is  the  city  of  Europe  ;  it  imites  more  than 
any  city  in  the  world  the  wants  of  a  variety  of  classes, 
the  habits  of  a  variety  of  people.  With  the  snow  you 
have  the  sledge  of  St.  Petersburg ;  Virith  the  summer  the 
music,  the  nightly  promenade,  the  ice,  the  lemonade, 
and  all — but  the  sea  and  the  sky,  of  Naples. 

I  am  now  at  the  comer  of  the  Rue  de  la  Pais.  It. 
is  a  beautiful  autumnal  evening.  What  a  dazzling  con* 
fiision  of  colours  and  images!  white  houses,  green 
trees,  and  glittering  lights !  The  rattling  equipage 
rushes  by  me,  the  whispering  saimterer  lounges  before 
me,  and  the  group  is  seated  round  the  **  cafe  ;'*  and  the 
music  is  far  enough  away  to  lose  all  harshness ;  and 
in  the  background— behold !  the  piles  of  buildings, 
and  the  lines  of  lamps,  rising  one  above  the  other,  and 
broken  at  intervals  by  some  dark  mass  of  verdure !  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  describe  this  scene,  and  as  im- 
possible to  gaze  upon  it,  without  inhaling  some  por- 
tion of  the  spirit  it  breathes,  without  feeling  a  charac- 
ter  more  soft  and  southern — a  ray  of  light  that  had  not 
penetrated  there  before,  stealing  into  the  severe  and 
sombre  recesses  of  one's  northern  imagination.  Here 
it  is  more  especially  that  the  Boulevards  justify  the  old 
French  proverb,  which  says,  "  When  le  hon  Dieu  is 
out  of  humour,  he  opens  one  of  the  windows  of  heaven^ 
and  recovers  his  spirits  by  a  glimpse  of  this  long  line 
of  trees."  There  is  certainly  nothing  that  I  know  ol 
like  the  Boulevards  in  any  other  city  in  the  world. 
3* 


^)  f>^S  Qk&a^Mi, 


BOULEVARDa 

The  Boulevards  contain  a  part  of  every  district  of  Paris,  and  exhibit 
every  class  of  Paris — Description  from  the  Rue  Royale  to  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix — Terraces  of  the  Rue  Basse  du  Rampart — Stalls  oppo- 
site, horses,  equipages,  &e.  &c. — Description  from  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix  to  the  Rue  de  Richelieu — Voluptuaries-^Gamblers — Stock- 
trokers — The  man  of  La  BruySre — Portraits — Description  after  the 
Rue  Montmartre — Parisian  Medici — Farther  on,  commerce  more 
modest— Gayeties—Dubureaux,  waxworks,  &€.•— Boulevard  Beau- 
marchais — Place  Ro3rale— Elephant — Boulevards  the  best  place  to 
•see  the  French  people,  and  to  study  the  French  history — Paris,  1814 
— Review  by  Loms  Philippcw 

Oxford-street  gives  one  aspect  of  London,  Re- 
sent-street  another,  the  Strand  another ;  but  the  Bou- 
levards, running  directly  through  Patis,  display  the 
character  of  the  town  in  all  its  districts,  and  the  char- 
acter of  its  inhabitants  in  all  their  classes. 

Go  from  the  Rue  Royale  to  the  site  of  the  old  Bastille. 
You  first  pass  by  those  zigzag  and  irregular  houses 
Ihat  jut  out  upon  the  old  rampart,  and  which  have 
rather  a  picturesque  appearance,  from  the  gay  little  ter- 
-races  and  balconies  which,  when  there  is  a  ray  of  sun, 
are  sure  to  be  lit  up  by  it ;  and  opposite,  you  have  the 
stalls,  gay  also  (notwithstanding  their  poverty),  where 
you  may  get  nailed  shoes  and  cotton-net  braces,  and 
works  "  six  sous  the  volume  !'*  stalls  which  carry, 
even  into  this  scene  of  wealth  and  pleasure,  the  de- 
<mocracy  of  the  epoch,  and  say  that  the  people  are 
everywhere  buying,  lounging,  reading.  And  here  you 
have  a  happy  opportunity  of  admiring  the  vast  variety 
of  Parisian  equipages — the  poor  and  the  rich  are  on 
horseback,  on  foot,  in  carriages,  in  tilburies,  in  "  cita- 
dines,"  in  "  demifortimes,"  in  onmibuses,  hurrying  to 
or  from  the  Champs  Elys6e» — but  ^Mce  past  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Bains  Chinois, 
the  Caf6  de  Paris,  andTortoni's,  yott  ape  in  a<lifferenj& 


BOULEVARDS.  31 

region.  It  is  not  only  a  throng  perpetually  changing 
which  you  now  see — the  cavalcade  has  in  a  great  mea- 
sure ceased  ;  and  you  perceive  a  new,  and  a  more  lazy, 
and  a  more  lounging  crowd  seated  at  the  doors  of  the 
**  cafes,"  or  strolling  up  and  down  before  them.  Those 
gentlemen  who,  to  use  the  French  expression,  "ea^ 
their  fortunes,^  are  here ;  and  here  are  the  gamblers 
of  the  stock  exchange,  of  "  the  salon,^^  and  of  Fres- 
cati's, — the  passionate  race  who  crowd  existence  into 
a  day,  who  live  every  minute  of  their  lives,  and  who 
have  come  to  enjoy  the  hour  they  have  snatched  from 
agitation.  Here  they  saunter  listlessly  in  the  sun,  or 
stand  in  clusters  at  the  corners  of  the  streets. 

This  is  the  spot,  too,  where  you  are  sure  to  meet 
that  smirking  and  happy  gentleman  who,  as  La  Bru)^ere 
says,  "  encounters  one  everywhere" — that  gentleman 
whom  we  just  met  in  the  Tuileries,  whom  we  saw  the 
night  before  at  the  opera,  and  whom  we  should  be  sure 
to  stare  in  the  face  at  the  Varietes.  Sit  for  half  an 
hour  on  one  of  those  chairs — there  is  hardly  any  class 
the  type  of  which  will  not  pass  before  you!  The 
pretty  nurse  of  the  Chaussee  d'Antin,  the  old  bachelor 
of  the  Marais,  the  "  gros  bourgeois"  of  the  Rue  St. 
Denis,  the  English  family  of  two  sons  and  seven 
daughters — all  these  you  are  sure  to  see  in  turn.  But 
there  are  portraits  sacred  to  the  place !  Yonder 
elderly  gentleman  is  one  !  He  is  about  fifty-five  years 
of  age  ;  tall,  with  a  slight  bend  forward ;  he  moves 
with  a  certain  stiffness  ;  his  hair,  closely  cut,  is  a  dark 
gray  ;  his  features,  rather  delicate  and  aristocratic  than 
otherwise,  are  weather-beaten,  and  perhaps  in  some 
degree  worn  and  sharpened  by  debauch ;  he  wears  a 
black  neckcloth ;  the  part  of  his  shirt  that  is  seen  is 
remarkably  white  ;  his  coat,  decorated  with  a  red  rib- 
and, is  buttoned  up  to  his  chest,  and  only  just  shows  a 
stripe  of  a  pale  yellow  waistcoat ;  he  walks  with  a 
cane,  and  has  that  kind  of  half-haughty,  half-careless 
air  by  which  Bonaparte's  soldier  is  still  distinguished. 
A  little  behind  him  are  two  men,  arm-in-arm ;  the  hat 
of  one,  elaborately  adjusted,  is  very  much  bent  down 


32  THE    CAPITAL. 

before  and  behind,  and  turned  up  in  an  almost  equal 
proportion  at  the  sides  ;  his  waistcoat  is  peculiar  and 
very  long  ;  his  trousers  large  about  the  hips,  and  tight- 
ening at  the  foot ;  he  wears  long  spurs,  immense  mus- 
taches, brandishes  a  cane,  spits,  and  swaggers.  The 
other,  as  insignificant  in  appearance  as  his  friend  is 
offensive,  wears  a  little  round  hat,  a  plain  spotted  sum- 
mer waistcoat,  light  gray  trousers,  and  a  thin  stick, 
which  he  rather  trails  than  flourishes.  The  inoffen- 
sive gentleman  looks  at  nothing — the  swaggering  gen- 
tleman looks  at  every  thing  :  the  inoffensive  gentleman 
plays  at  whist,  and  creeps  into  society — the  swagger- 
ing gentleman  lives  at  the  theatres,  and  drives  about  an 
actress. — And  now  see  a  man,  tall,  dark,  with  an  air 
in  which  fierceness  and  dignity  intermingle !  He  walks 
alone :  sometimes  he  shuts  his  eyes,  sometimes  he  folds 
his  arms  ;  a  variety  of  occasions  on  which  he  lost,  a 
variety  of  chances  by  which  he  might  have  gained, 
give  every  now  and  then  a  convulsive  twitch  to  his 
overhanging  eyebrow — he  meets  a  red-nosed  gentle- 
man, of  sleek  and  comely  aspect,  and  who  steps  upon 
his  toes  ; — the  two  walk  arm-in-arm  together  towards 

the  Rue  de  Richelieu 

Pass  on  to  the  Rue  Montmartre,  and  the  Boulevard 
takes  a  different  aspect.  The  activity  of  business 
mixes  itself  with  the  activity  of  idleness  ;  here  are  the 
large  magazines  of  the  Parisian  Medici ;  the  crowd, 
less  elegant,  has  the  air  of  being  more  employed.  Pass 
on  again — commerce  assumes  a  quieter  appearance  ; 
its  luxurious  companions  have  disappeared ;  there  are 
no  chairs,  for  there  is  no  leisure  ;  but  go  a  little  far- 
ther, and  the  gayeties  recommence  ;  the  gayeties,  this 
time,  not  of  the  "  nohilace,^'*  but  of  the  ^^ populace'^ — 
not  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  "  Chaussee  d'Antin,"  but 
of  the  aristocracy  of  the  "  Temple."  Grouped  round 
yonder  stage,  much  resembling  the  antique  theatre  of 
Thespis,  you  see  the  mob  of  modern  Greece,  enchanted 
with  the  pleasures  of  Dubureaux  :*  and  here  you  may 

*  The  famous  street-actor,  whose  ambulatory  stage  has  been  cele 
brated  by  M.  Janin. 


BatTEEVARDS.  30 

put  into  the  lottery  for  a  cake,  and  here  you  may  have 
your  destiny  told  for  a  "  sou ;"  and  the  great  men — the 
great  men  of  France — the  marshals  and  generals  of 
the  empire,  the  distinguished  orators  of  the  Restoration, 
the  literary  celebrities  of  the  day — ^Ney,  Foy,  Victor 
Hugo — are  there  before  you,  as  large — a  great  deal 
larger,  indeed — than  life  ;  for  the  midtitude  are  rarely 
satisfied  with  things  just  as  they  are  ;  they  like  to  see 
their  heroes  fresh,  fat,  and  magnificently  dressed ;  and 
all  this  is  easily  accomplished  when  their  heroes  are 
— in  wax.  Where  these  great  men  at  present  exhibit 
Xhemselves,  there  used  formerly  to  be  tumblers ;  bul 
the  people's  amusements  have  changed,  though  the  peo* 
pie  must  still  be  amused* 

And  at  last  we  have  come  to  the  silent  and  tranquil 
Boulevard  of  the  agitated  and  turbulent  Beaumarchais ; 
and  behind  are  the  tall  palaces  of  dark-red  brick,  and 
the  low  and  gloomy  arcades  of  the  Place  Royale, 
where  you  find  the  old-fashioned  magistrate,  the  old- 
fashioned  merchant,  the  retired  respectability  of  Paris  : 
and  yonder !  before  us — is  the  memorable  spot,  witness^ 
of  the  first  excesses  and  the  first  triumphs  of  the  Revo- 
lution— but  the  spectres  of  its  old  time  are  vanished,, 
and  the  eye  which  rests  upon  the  statue  of  yonder 
gigantic  and  sagacious  animal*  tries  to  legitimatize  the- 
monument, — by  considering  it  as  a  type  of  the  great 
people  who  raised  the  barricades  in  July,  1830,  and 
overthrew  the  Bastille  in  July,  1789. 

And  now,  my  dear  reader,  in  parading  you  thus  sys- 
tematically from  the  Madelaine  to  the  "  Temple,"  I 
have  given  you  the  best  introduction,  I  believe,  to  Parist 
and  its  population.  If  you  want  to  know  the  people 
of  Paris,  you  must  seek  them  abroad.  They  love  the 
sun,  and  the  air,  and  the  sauntering  stroll ;  they  love, 
if  it  be  only  for  a  moment,  to  glide  across  the  broad 
street — amid  the  turnings  and  windings  of  which  so- 
ciety changes  it8  colours  at  every  mstant^like  theehijV- 

•  The  elephant 
B9 


S4  *^Hte  cAtnAU 

ing  forms  of  a  kaleidoscope  :  the  idle  loiter  -there  for- 
amusement,  the  busy  steal  there  for  distraction.  Be- 
sides, it  is  not  only  the  present  I  have  been  showing 
you :  I  do  not  know  where  you  may  better  study  the 
past.  What  has  not  even  our  own  generation  looked 
on  from  yonder  windows  ]  Robespierre,  Barras,  Bona- 
parte, the  Republic,  the  Directory,  the  Empire— have 
all  passed  in  triumph  and  defeat  before  them, 

— "  By  twelve  o'clock  at  noon  the  Boulevards  were 
crowded  with  people  of  every  class,  all  appearing  in 
high  spirits ;  the  number  of  white  cockades  increased  ; 
many  of  them  wore  only  bits  of  white  handkerchiefs, 
bits  of  white  paper,—*  Yivent  nos  liberateurs  P  *  Vivent 
Us  Bourbons!*"  I  put  down  the  book  I  was  reading 
the  other  morning  (*'  Events  at  Paris  in  1814")  at  thia- 
passage,  and  went  out  to  see  Louis  Philippe  reviewing 
the  very  men  who  had  driven  these  same  Bourbons 
into  exile.  The  Boulevards  now,  too,  were  crowded 
with  people  of  all  classes,  appearing  in  high  spirits  ; 
and,  looking  down  the  street,  I  saw  the  straight  red 
feather  and  the  white  belt  mingling  with  the  scarf, 
and  the  shawl,  and  the  plain  cap,  and  the  splendid 
bonnet  The  new  king  was  on  horseback,  smiling 
graciously  on  hia  faithful  people  ;  and  behind  him  rode 
Sie  prince,  on  whose  head  repose  the  future  destinies 
of  Franco — as  gay,  as  handsome,  as  full  of  hope,  as 
the  Comto  <i*Artoi&  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XY. 


PALAIS    ROYAL.  85 


PALAIS  ROYAL. 

Every  thing  in  Paris  that  is  remarkable,  remarkable  for  its  gayely — 
Evening  in  the  Palais  Royal  in  1830 — The  Jubilee  of  the  Revolu- 
tion— The  king  of  the  middle  classes  had  his  palace  supported  by 
shops — Fete  Napolitaine — Vicissitudes  of  history — Description 
of  the  Palais  Royal,  and  changes — Gambling-houses;  descrip- 
tion from  M.  Balzac — Must  civilization  be  accompanied  by  its 
curses  ? 

There  are  countries  in  which  you  may  yet  find  a 
few  of  those  solemn  temples  which  defy  the  destruc- 
tion of  time,  and  the  imitation  of  man.  In  Italy,  in 
Greece,  and  in  Asia,  there  are  shrines  at  which  your 
footsteps  too  fondly  linger  :  in  the  silenoe  of  the  great 
place  of  St.  Mark,  in  the  solitudes  that  surround  the 
Coliseum,  you  feel  the  mystery  of  the  spot,  and  sigh 
for  the  pleasant  days  of  Venice — for  the  virtue  and  the 
glory  of  "  the  antique  Rome."  It  is  not  the  magnifi- 
cence of  these  scenes,  it  is  their  melancholy — the 
melancholy  which  that  magnificence  has  left — that 
sinks  into  your  soul,  and  enchants  you  with  the  hue 
of  by-gone  memories — of  hopes  and  happiness  no 
more.  There  is  nothing  of  this  here:  whatever  is 
most  remarkable  in  Paris  is  remarkable  for  its  gayety. 
This  is  why  I  spoke  of  the  Boulevards :  this  is  why  I 
now  speak  of  the  Palais  Royal.  It  will  be  long  before 
I  forget  an  evening  that  I  spent  there  in  the  beginning 
of  August,  1830.  I  had  come  from  the  quiet  corners 
of  the  city,  more  and  more  struck  at  every  step  by  the 
tranquillity  into  which  a  revolution  could  so  suddenly 
subside.  It  could  hardly  be  said  there  was  a  govern- 
ment, and  there  seemed  nothing  to  require  one  :  the 
storm  that  had  raised  the  barricade  and  swept  over  the 
throne  was  lulled  completely  to  rest.  The  poor  popu- 
lation of  the  distant  faubourgs  slept  in  forge tfulness 
of  the  recent  triumphs  they  had  won  ;  and  the  streets 


36  THE    CAPITAL. 

through  which  I  had  passed  were  lone  and  silent,  and 
traversed  by  no  light  save  that  of  the  pale  ''  reverb^re." 
It  was  fresh  from  this  dim  and  solitary  walk  that  I  burst 
at  once  upon  the  splendour  and  the  crowds  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  Every  chair,  every  stone  bench  was  occupied, 
and,  instead  of  the  dark  and  deserted  street,  I  found  my- 
self lost  in  an  immense  throng,  and  bewildered  by  a 
blaze  of  light,  which  ostentatiously  displayed  shawls 
and  silks,  and  gold,  and  silver,  and  crystal,  and  precious 
stones ;  and  amid  this  gorgeous  and  confused  glitter 
sat  in  sedate  satisfaction  the  epicurean  ^^  Rentier  "  now 
recounting  to  his  wife  the  change  that  was  to  be  made 
in  the  new  uniform  of  the  Garde  Nationale — now 
pointing  out  some  pupil  of  the  Polytechnic  School,  or 
some  dark-haired  student  of  the  "  Ecole  de  Droit ^"^  who 
had  been  particularly  conspicuous  at  the  spot  where 
he  himself  had  performed  miracles :  and  the  waiters 
rushed  from  side  to  side,  bustling,  shouting ;  and  the 
laugh,  and  the  gay  voice  in  which  the  Frenchman  tells 
the  tale  of  his  exploits,  resounded  everywhere. 

It  was  impossible  not  to  connect  the  festivity  around 
me  with  the  events  of  the  three  days  preceding ;  it 
was  impossible  not  to  imagine  I  was  present  at  the 
jubilee  of  the  new  regime :  and  in  each  accent  of 
gayety  I  fancied  there  was  to  be  discerned  a  peculiar 
tone,  and  in  each  look  of  joy  I  fancied  there  could  be 
read  a  peculiar  expression;  and  what  place  more 
proper  to  celebrate  the  triumphs  of  July?  Installed 
amid  the  commercial  opulence  around  me  was  at  that 
time  the  residence  of  the  citizen  king — the  monarch 
of  the  middle  classes  ;  his  palace  was  supported  by 
shops ;  his  wealth*  was  connected  with  the  wealth, 
and  his  fortune  supplied  by  the  fortune,  of  the  tailor, 
the  watchmaker,  the  jeweller,  and  the  "  restaurant :" 
France,  in  reconstituting  her  monarchy,  had  meetly 
and  involuntarily  taken  the  comiter  as  a  substitute 
for  the  buckler — noble  cradle  of  her  military  kings  I 
But  two  months  before,  and  the  windows  of  the  palace, 

*  The  chairs  alone  give  a  revenue  of  80,000  francs. 


PALAIS    ROYAL.  37 

which  at  that  moment  were  dark  and  gloomy,  blazed 
with  light !  The  royal  exile  of  Cherbourg,  then  in  all 
the  pageantry  of  power,  had  deigned  for  the  first  time 
to  visit  the  cousin  who  now  sat  upon  his  throne.  More 
than  one  branch  of  the  Bourbons  were  assembled  on 
the  eve  of  that  catastrophe  which  was  to  affect  the 
order  of  their  race.  The  fete  given  was  in  honour  of 
the  King  of  Naples.  "  Oest  unefete  toute  Napolitaine^ 
monseigneur^^  said  Monsieur  de  Salvandy  ;  "  nous  dan- 
sons  sur  un  volcany'^ 


*  "  C^est  unefHe  toute  Napolitaine,  monseigneur,*^  said  M.  de  Salvandy; 
"  rums  dansons  sur  un  volcan."  And  brilliant  must  have  been  that 
{He  ;  extending  from  the  terrace  to  the  trees,  from  arcade  to  arcade, 
the  lights  of  the  palace  confounded  themselves  with  the  hghts  or 
the  vast  amphitheatre  around,  and  mingled  the  prince  with  the  people, 
the  monarch  with  the  mob,  in  one  confused  blaze — you  saw  the 
court,  the  city — the  two  parties  in  presence  who  were  soon  to  dis- 
pute the  victory.  At  this  {6te  a  conversation  took  place  so  singular 
and  so  interesting  that,  having  mentioned  the  f^te,  I  cannot  omit  the 
conversation.     I  give  it  as  M.  de  Salvandy  has  himself  related  it. 

"  It  took  place  as  the  consequence  of  the  bon-mot — '  C^cst  unefite 
Unite  Napolitaine,  monseigneur ;  nous  dansons  sur  un  volcan.'  The 
prince  (Due  d'Orleans)  standing  behind  the  'fauteuils'  of  the  prin- 
cesses and  the  king,  seized  my  arm  quickly  as  I  said  this,  and 
doing  me  the  honour  to  draw  me  towards  him,  '  That  there  is  a 
volcano,'  said  his  royal  highness,  '  I  believe  as  well  as  you  ;  and,  at 
all  events,  the  fault  is  no  fault  of  mine :  I  shall  not  have  to  reproach 
myself  for  allowing  the  bandage  to  remain  unlifted  that  covers  the 
king's  eyes.  But  what  can  one  do  ?  nothing  is  hstened  to,  and  God 
only  knows  where  this  will  lead  us !' 

" '  Far !  monseigneur,  it  will  lead  us  far  ! — that  is  my  conviction. 
I  feel  also  in  the  midst  of  this  fSte,  so  animated  and  so  beautifril,  a 
profound  sentiment  of  sorrow  :  I  ask  myself  where  in  six  months 
will  be  this  briUiant  society  ?  where  will  be  these  crowds  so  joyous  ? 
that  princess  so  gay  (alluding  to  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berri,  who 
was  '  galloping'  with  Count  Rodolph  d'Appony)  ?  where,  in  fact,  will 
be  our  country  ?  Within  six  months  we  shall  probably  be  divided 
into  the  proscribed  and  the  proscribing.' 

"  '  Certes,'  answered  his  royal  highness,  '  I  do  not  know  what 
will  happen — I  do  not  know  where  those  you  speak  of  will  be  in  six 
months ;  but  I  know  where  I  shall  be,  whatever  comes.  I  and  my 
family  will  remain  in  this  palace ;  it  is  enough  to  have  been  twice  an 
exile  through  the  faults  of  others.  Whatever  be  the  dangers,  I  shall 
not  move  from  this  spot ;  I  shall  not  separate  my  lot  and  the  lot  of 
my  children  from  the  fate  of  my  country.  What  I  say  to  you  I  make 
no  secret  of  elsewhere — lately,  indeed,  at  Rosny,  I  said  pretty  fully 
what  I  think  of  all  this ;  and  there  is  the  King  of  Naples,  who  was 
with  us,  and  who  saw  clearly  our  positioa  That  prince,  whom  yon 
Bee  so  broken,  and  who  nevertheless  is  four  years  younger  than  I 
am,  is  a  man  of  a  good  deal  of  sense ;  circnmstances  oblige  him  to 
4 


38  THE    CAPITAL 

Such  are  the  vicissitudes  of  history !     The  same 
Richelieu  who  tore  down  the  pillars  of  the  ancient 

be  an  absolute  king  (Austrian  bayonets),  but  his  own  inclinations 
would  have  led  him  differently.  He  has  made,  I  assure  you,  some 
very  sensible  observations,  By-the-by,  we  spoke  at  Rosny  of  some 
remarks  of  yours.' 

'*  I  said  that  '  I  was  convinced  that  the  monarchy  was  falling,  and 
that  I  was  not  less  convinced  that  the  fall  of  the  throne  would  com- 
promise for  a  hundred  years  the  prosperity  and  the  liberty  of  France.* 

"  '  In  afflicting  myself  as  much  as  you  can  do,'  said  the  prince, 
'  at  the  conduct  which  the  king  is  pursuing,  I  am  not  so  frightened 
as  you  are  at  its  probable  results.  There  is  in  France  a  strong  love 
of  order— that  France  which  the  government  will  not  understand 
is  excellent,  is  admirable ;  see  how  the  law  is  respected  amid  so 
many  provocations  !  The  experience  of  the  Revolution  (1789)  is 
present  to  all ;  its  conquests,  its  folUes,  and  its  crimes  are  detested. 
/  am  convinced  that  a  new  revolution  would  in  no  respects  resemble  that 
which  we  have  seen.' 

"  '  Monseigneur,  that  is  to  believe  in  a  revolution  of  1688.  But 
when  England  departed  from  the  path  of  legitimacy,  the  aristocracy 
remained  as  an  element  of  order  ;  with  us  there  is  no  aristocracy  to 
be  called  an  aristocracy,  and  what  there  is  of  one  will  perish  with 
the  Bourbons  :  every  thing  will  again  be  smoothed  down  to  a  level, 
and  I  do  not  think  a  pure  democracy  capable  of  founding  any  thing 
that  is  to  have  duration.' 

" '  Monsieur  de  Salvandy,  you  do  not  do  justice  to  the  effect  of 
that  diffusion  of  intelligence  which  follows  the  diffusion  of  fortunes. 
The  world  has  completely  changed  since  forty  years ;  the  middle 
classes  are  not  all  society,  but  they  form  its  force,  they  have  a  con- 
stant interest  in  order,  and  they  join  to  that  knowledge  which  com- 
municates the  wants  of  a  great  empire  that  power  necessary  to 
combat  and  suppress  bad  passions.  Jacobinism  is  impossible  where 
the  greater  portion  of  the  community  have  possessions  to  lose.' 

" '  I  have  always  thought,  monseigneur,  and  I  still  maintain  the 
same  opinion,  that  it  is  a  dangerous  error  to  consider  that  property 
alone  is  the  guarantee  of  a  desire  for  order.  Property  with  us  is  so 
divided  that  it  has  its  multitude,  envious  of  every  superior,  and  inimi- 
cal to  every  power.  1  should  fear  that  that  multitude,  being  the 
most  numerous  party,  and  always  disposed  to  satisfy  its  hatred  of 
the  higher  classes,  would  soon,  by  its  levelling  schemes,  bring  us  to 
anarchy,  if  anarchy  were  not  the  commencement  of  the  new  regime.' 
"  '  Monsieur  de  Salvandy,  believe  me,  all  that  the  country  wants  is 
the  sincere  establishment  of  a  constitutional  government ;  this  is  all 
it  asks.  The  evil  has  arrived  from  the  impossibility,  among  certain 
persons,  of  accepting  at  once, '  et  de  bonne  foi'  all  the  results  of  the 
Kevolution,  and  of  the  Charta  more  particularly.  The  faults  of  the 
last  Revolution  sprang  from  the  false  distribution  of  rank  and  for- 
tune, wliich  was  united  with  the  wretched  education  that  character- 
ized the  ancient  regime.  We  have  left  all  that  behind  us.  My  po- 
litical rehgion  consists  in  the  belief,  that  with  constitutional  opinions 
all  may  be  directed  right.  These  principles  I  have  always  held. 
When  an  exile  at  the  court  of  Sicily,  I  was  asked,  in  order  to  obtain 
my  wife,  to  make  certain  concessions.     I  declared  that  my  opinions 


PALAIS    ROYAL.  39 

monarchy  built  the  palace  from  which  the  new  mon- 
archy was  to  be  taken  ;*  at  once  an  emblem  of  the 
man,  who  united  the  habits  of  the  prince  with  the  am- 
bition of  the  priest,  and  of  the  time,  which  saw  no 
dissimilarity  in  the  titles.  "  cardinal"  and  "  courtier," 
this  palace  was  adorned  with  all  the  taste  and  the  luxury 
of  the  seventeenth  century ;  and  combined,  in  a  sin- 
gular manner,  the  avocations  of  the  church  with  the 

were  invariable,  that  in  those  opinions  I  would  bring  up  my  children, 
and  that  I  would  do  this  as  much  for  their  interest  as  for  a  love  of 
truth.  The  misfortune  of  princes  is,  that  they  do  not  know  the 
people,  and  that  they  entertain  and  cherish  ideas  and  opinions  dif- 
ferent from  those  whom  they  govern.  This  is  why  I  gave  a  public 
education  to  my  sons ;  and  m  every  respect  it  has  succeeded.  I 
wished  them  at  once  to  be  princes  and  citizens.  I  wished  that  they 
should  not  deem  themselves  a  favoured  race ;  that  they  should  not 
participate  in  the  habits  of  a  corrupt  circle ;  that  they  should  not 
always  have  before  their  eyes  the  veil  of  a  court  education  ;  that 
they  should  not  be  bound  by  the  tastes  of  childhood  to  those  inter- 
ested in  deceiving  them,  and  moreover  frequently  deceived.  Such 
has  been  my  object ;  and  I  am  certain  that  I  have  to  congratulate 
myself  on  the  course  I  have  pursued.' 

"  The  Duke  of  Orleans  was  at  first  standing ;  he  afterward  made 
me  sit  down  by  his  side ;  we  were  exactly  behind  Charles  X.,  who 
might  have  heard  every  word  we  were  saying." 

Let  us  do  justice  to  the  King  of  the  French!  Henry  IV.  never 
delivered  a  speech  which  contained  so  much  goodness,  sense,  and 
truth  as  there  is  to  be  found  in  these  remarks ;  they  offer  a  fair 
justification  of  Louis  Philippe's  conduct  to  the  family  he  dethroned ; 
they  would  offer  the  best  security  to  the  people  whom  he  governs,  if 
we  had  not  unfortunately  so  many  examples  of  the  corrupting  influ- 
ence of  power,  of  the  heart  being  changed,  and  the  understanding 
blinded  by  a  successful  ambition. 

*  The  Palais  Royal,  constructed  after  the  plans  of  Lemercier,  was 
one  of  the  works  of  his  magnificent  reign,  and  was  called,  during  hi8 
lifetime,  •*  Palais  Cardinal." 

Funeste  batiment  autant  que  magnifique, 
Ouvrage  qui  n'est  rien  qu'un  effet  des  malheurs, 
Pavilions  61ev^s  sur  le  debris  des  mceurs. 
Qui  causez  aujourd'hui  la  mis^re  publique, 
Ordres  bien  observes  dans  toute  la  fabrique, 
Lambris  dor^s  et  peints  de  divines  couleurs, 
Si  tremp^s  dans  le  sang  et  dans  I'eau  de  nos  pleurs, 
Pour  assouvir  I'humeur  d'un  conseil  tyrannique. 
Pompe  rouge  du  feu  de  mille  embrasemens : 
Balustres,  promenoirs,  superflus  ornemens  : 
Grand  Portail,  enrichi  de  piliers  et  de  niches, 
Tu  portes  en  ecrit  un  nom  qui  te  sied  mal, 
Onte  devait  nommer  I'hotel  des  mauvais  riches 
Avec  plusde  raison  que — "  Palais  Cardinal." 


40  nm  CAPITAL. 

pleasures  of  the  world.     It  had  its  houdoirs,  its  gal- 
lery, its  theatre,  and  its  chapel.* 

The  ancient  garden  of  the  Palais  Royal,  much 
larger  than  the  present  one,  comprehended,  besides 
the  present  garden,  the  streets  De  Valois,  De  Mont- 
pensier,  and  De  Beaujolais,  as  well  as  that  space  now 
occupied  by  the  sides  of  the  palace,  which  have  been 
more  recently  built.  Its  great  ornament  was  a  large 
alley  of  mulberry-trees,  old,  and  "  thick  of  leaves ;" 
and  beneath  this  alley^s  venerable  shade  were  usually 
collected  the  idle  and  inquisitive  of  one  sex,  the  profli- 
gate and  purchasable  of  another :  seventeen  hundred 
and  eighty-two,  that  revolutionary  epoch,  laid  low  even 
the  mulberry-trees,  in  spite  of  the  songs  and  epigrams 
with  which  the  improvement  was  received.!  Threo 
sides  of  the  present  square  were  then  completed ;  the 
fourth,  constructed  provisionally  of  wood,  was  that  sin- 
gular and  shabby  row  of  stalls  which  we  still  remem- 
ber, originally  called  "  Camp  des  Tartares"  and  which 
has  but  lately  given  way  to  the  superb  gallery  con* 
structed  by  the  present  king. 

There  are  spots  to  which  a  certain  destiny  seems- 
attached.  As  early  as  Anne  of  Austria,  the  troubles  of 
the  Fronde  might  be  said  to  commence  at  the  Palai» 
Koyal.  Here  it  was  that  the  parliament,  assembled  in 
the  royal  gallery,  declared  in  favour  of  the  wishes  of 
the  people !  and  here  it  was,  about  a  hundred  and  fifty 
vears  afterward,  that  a  young  man  (Camille  Desmou- 
lins),  jumping  upon  one  of  the  straw  chairs,  harangued 
the  populace  on  the  night  of  the  famous  charge  of  the^ 
Prince  de  Lambesc,  and  sounded  the  first  notes  of  that 
revolution  which  commenced  by  the  assault  of  the  Bas- 
tille, and  ended  by  the  expulsion  of  the  senate.  It  was- 
in  the  Palais  Royal  that  the  club  of  the  Jacobins  was 

•  Louis  XIV.  gave  the  Palais  Royal  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  In, 
this  palace  have  successively  dwelt  Richelieu,  Louis  XIII.,  Anne  of 
Austria,  Henrietta  of  England,  and  six  princes  (including  the  present 
king)  of  the  house  of  Orleans. 

t  It  was  then  that  the  Due  d'Orleans  rephed  to  some  one  who- 
fisked  whether  he  would  not  find  the  building  very  expensive,  "  Potsf- 
<fe  tout,  car  t<mt  le  imonde  me  jette  la  pierre." 


PALAIS    ROYAL.  41 

formed ;  it  was  in  the  Palais  Royal  that  its  rival  club 
of  the  Thermidorians  was  held ;  the  centre  of  action, 
discussion,  politics — every  "  cafe"  in  this  historical 
spot  is  sacred  for  its  recollections  and  its  opinions. 
The  Cafe  do  Foy  was  the  theatre  of  the  Dantonists — 
the  Cafe  de  Chartres  of  the  Gironde.  The  Hundred 
Days  had  its  "  cafe"  of  patriots  ;  and  the  Restoration  its 
"  cafe"  of  enthusiastic  youth  and  dissatisfied  soldiers, 
I  do  not  know  a  better  description  of  the  kind  of  gentle- 
men who  frequent  this  resort  than  is  contained  in  the 
simple  fact  mentioned  by  M.  de  Roch,  viz.  that  *'  there 
is  not  an  *  hotel  garni'  in  the  place."  The  persons 
you  meet  are  a  population  of  strollers — of  wanderers 
from  every  part  of  Paris,  and  from  every  part  of  the 
world — of  men  who  seek  no  rest  but  such  as  may  be 
found  in  a  chair — who  desire  no  information  not  con- 
tained in  a  newspaper,  no  excitement  beyond  that 
which  is  offered  by  certain  houses  in  the  vicinity. 

The  police,  by  no  means  less  pimctilious  since  the 
revolution  than  during  the  pious  '*  regime"  that  it  de- 
stroyed, have  completely  driven  away  those  improper 
ladies  who  used  to  horrify  all  more  decent  and  re- 
spectable matrons,  by  appearing  as  indecorously 
dressed  as  if  they  had  been  going  to  a  ball  in  good 
society.  This,  no  doubt,  has  very  much  improved  the 
evening  company  of  the  Palais  Royal.  But  the  most 
virtuous  have  a  tide-mark  in  their  morality,  and  neither 
the  "  Jesuits"  nor  the  "  Doctrine"  have  allowed  theirs 
to  overflow  the  point  at  which  it  might  do  injury  to  the 
revenue.  No  :  the  gambling-house  is  to  be  open  night 
and  day  to  all  adventurers,  and  the  morgue  and  the 
treasury  are  filled  by  the  same  miserable  contrivance. 

The  following  passage,  taken  from  a  popular  French 
novel,  presents  a  picture  of  one  of  these  iniquitous  re- 
sources of  the  exchequer : — 

"  Enter !  how  bare  !  The  walls  are  covered  with 
coarse  paper  to  the  height  of  your  head !  The  floor 
is  dirty,  and  a  number  of  straw  chairs,  drawn  round  a 
cloth  threadbare  from  the  rubbing  of  gold,  manifest  a 
strange  indifference  to  luxury  among  those  who  are 
4* 


42  THE    CAPITAL 

sacrificing  themselves  for  its  sake !  Four  old  men 
with  bald  heads,  and  visages  as  impassive  as  plaster, 
sit  round  the  table ;  and  by  them  a  young  Italian,  with 
long  black  hair,  leans  quietly  on  his  elbows,  and  ap- 
pears to  seek  those  secret  presentiments  which  whis- 
per so  fatally  to  the  gambler,  '  Yes,'  '  No.'  Seven 
or  eight  spectators  are  standing  silent,  motionless,  and 
attentive,  as  the  mobs  at  the  Place  de  Greve  when 
the  guillotine  is  about  to  fall  on  the  neck  of  the  victim. 
A  tall,  sour-looking  man,  in  a  threadbare  coat,  holding 
a  card  in  one  hand,  a  pin  in  another,  pricks  in  '  rovge" 
or  '  nozV,'  according  to  the  turn  of  the  card.  This  is 
your  Tantalus  of  modern  days — one  of  those  who  live 
upon  the  brink  of  all  the  pleasures  of  their  time — this 
is  a  miser  without  a  treasure,  playing  an  imaginary 
stake ;  a  sort  of  reasonable  madman,  who  consoles 
himself  for  the  misery  of  his  fate  by  caressing  a  terri- 
ble chimera. 

"  Opposite  the  bank,  one  or  two  players,  skilled  in 
all  the  chances  of  the  game,  and  like  those  thieves 
who  are  no  longer  frightened  at  the  galleys,  are  come 
to  make  their  three  *  coups,'  and  to  carry  off  immedi- 
ately the  probable  winnings  on  which  they  live.  An 
old  waiter  walks  nonchalantly  up  and  down  the  room, 
his  arms  folded,  and  stops  now  and  then  at  the  window, 
as  if  to  show  to  the  passengers  beneath  '  the  sign  of 
the  house.*  The  dealer,  the  banker,  cast  upon  the 
players  that  sombre  look  which  thrills  the  soul  of  the 
young  gambler,  and  say  with  a  hoarse  voice, '  Faites 

*  As  there  are  many  things  untranslatable,  or  which  would  seem 
ridiculous  in  the  translation,  I  subjoin  the  original  forcible  and  fan- 
tastical description  : — 

"  Entrez  : — Quelle  nudity  !  Les  murs  converts  de  papier  gros  a 
hauteur  d'homme,  n'offrent  pas  un  image  qui  puisse  rafraichir  I'ame ; 
pas  m^me  un  clou  pour  faciliter  le  suicide.  Le  parquet  est  toujours 
malpropre.  Une  table  ronde  occupe  le  centre  de  la  salle,  et  la  sim- 
phcite  des  chaises  de  paille,  pressees  autour  de  ce  tapis  use  par  For, 
aimonce  une  curieuse  indifference  au  luxe  chez  ces  hommes  qui 

viennent  p^rir  la  pour  la  fortune  et  pour  le  luxe. Trois 

vieiilards,  k  t^tes  chauves  sont  nonchallamment  assis  autour  du  tapis 
vert.  Leurs  Adsages  de  platre  impassibles,  comme  ceux  des  diplo- 
mates  rev61ent  des  ames  blas^es,  des  coeurs  qui  depuis  long-terns 


PALAIS    ROYAL.  43 

Such  are  the  scenes  of  the  Palais  Royal — such  are 
the  scenes  of  that  fatal  place,  in  which  the  vice  and 
the  villany,  the  industry  and  the  arts,  the  force  and  the 
weakness,  the  power  and  the  pleasure,  the  idle  and 
voluptuous  habits,  the  morbid  and  active  spirit  of  our 
race — all  that  advances  and  instructs,  and  degrades 
and  disgraces  the  age  in  which  we  live — are  found 
side  by  side  together.  Must  civilization  be  accompa- 
nied by  its  curses  ?  .  .  .  The  electricity  which  creates 
the  thunder  guides  us  to  the  pole ;  and  the  same  ter- 
rible energy  which  disturbs  the  world  has  carried 
knowledge  and  religion  over  its  deep  and  mysterious 
ways. 

avaient  d^sappris  de  palpiter  en  envisageant  m^me  les  biens  para 
phemaux  d'une  femme.  Un  jeune  Itali'^n  aux  cheveux  noirs,  au 
teint  olivdtre,  ^tait  accoud^  tranquillement  au  bout  de  la  table,  et 
paraissait  ^couter  ces  pressentimens  secrets  qui  crient  fatalement  h 
un  joueur  *  Oui' — *  Non' — cette  t^te  m^ridionale  respirait  I'or  et  la 
feu.  Sept  ou  huit  spectateurs  debout,  ranges  de  mani^re  k  former 
une  galerie,  attendaient  les  scenes  que  leur  pr^paraient  les  coups  du 
sort,  les  figures  des  acteurs,  le  mouvement  de  I'argent  et  des  rateaux. 
Ces  d6soeuvr6s  ^talent  la,  silencieux,  immobiles,  attentifs,  comme 
est  le  peuple  k  la  Gr^ve  quand  le  bourreau  tranche  une  t^te.  Un 
grand  honune  sec  en  habit  rap6  tenait  un  registre  d'une  main,  et  de 
Pautre  une  epingle  pour  marquer  les  passes  de  la  rouge  ou  de  la  noire. 
C'^tait  un  de  ces  Tantales  modemes,  qui  vivent  en  marge  de  toutes 
les  jouissances  de  leur  si^cle ;  un  de  ces  avares  sans  tr^sor  qui  jouent 
en  id6e  une  mise  imaginaire ;  esp^ce  de  fou  raisonnable,  se  consolant 
de  ses  rais^res  en  caressant  une  ^pouvantable  chimere — agissant  enfin 
avec  le  vice  et  le  danger  comme  les  jeunes  pr^tres  avec  Dieu  quand 
lis  lui  disent  des  messes  blanches. 

"  Puis,  en  face  du  banque  un  ou  deux  de  ces  fins  sp6culateurs  ex- 
perts aux  chances  du  jeu  et  semblables  k  d'anciens  formats  qui  ne 
s'efiraient  plus  des  galores,  6taient  venus  1^  pour  hasarder  trois  coups 
et  emporter  imm6diatement  le  gain  probable  dont  ils  vivaient.  Deux 
vieux  gardens  de  salle  se  promenaient  nonchalamment,  les  bras 
croises,  regardant  aux  carreaux  par  intervalles  comme  pour  montrer 
aux  passans  leurs  plates  figures  en  guise  d'enseigne.  Le  tailleur  et 
le  banquier  venaient  de  jeter  sur  les  positeurs  ce  regard  bl^me  qui  les 
tue,  et  disaient  d'une  voix  gr^le  'Faites  le  jeu!'" — Balzac,  Peau 
de  Chagrin. — (I  have  translated  into  the  present  tense.)* 

♦  See  Appendix. 


4A  THB   CAPITAla 


THE  QUAIS  AND  THE  TUmERlES. 

Quais,  irregularity — Diversity — Paris  on  a  fine  day  a  picture  ol 
modern  civilization — Business,  crowd — Different  from  the  quays 
of  the  Thames — Powder-mill  replaced  by  the  Pantheon — Tuileries 
— Alterations — The  arts  should  be  as  inviolable  as  the  laws — Tuil- 
eries last  refuge  of  the  aristocracy — The  population  of  the  Tuileries 
— Remarkable  as  the  birth  of  a  new  age — Description  of  that  age 
— The  Tuileries  still  represent  it. 

The  four  great  features  in  the  physiognomy  of 
Paris  are  the  Boulevards,  the  Palais  Royal,  the  Tuil- 
eries, and  the  Quais.  The  Quais,  though  animated 
differently,  are  perhaps  more  animated  than  the  Boule- 
vards. Here  again,  too,  you  see  the  charm  of  variety 
and  irregularity;  what  so  irregular  as  those  islands 
jutting  out  into  the  Seine,  and  mingling  their  low  and 
dirty  hovels  with  the  splendid  palaces  of  the  Tuileries 
and  the  Louvre  ? — what  so  irregular  as  that  variety  of 
roofs  which,  standing  on  any  eminence,  you  behold 
rising  everywhere  around  you,  one  above  the  other, 
roofs  of  all  shapes,  mansions  and  domes  of  all  sizes  ? — ► 
what  so  diversified  as  that  mixture  of  boats  and  carriages, 
—of  pavement  and  of  water,— of  masts  and  men — of 
washer-women  and  soldiers,-— of  stalls,  temples,  manu- 
factories, and  mausoleums  ?  Paris  on  a  fine  day,  seen 
firom  one  of  the  bridges,  is  a  picture  of  modem  civiliza- 
tion; brilliant,  confused,  gay,  various;  but  the  picture 
(and  such  is  the  colouring  of  our  times)  is  a  picture  in 
water  colours  ;  the  shades,  bright,  are  not  deep ;  there 
is  not  the  darkness  and  the  force  which  we  admire  in 
the  paintings  of  Rembrandt  and  Murillo  :  there  is  not 
the  richness  that  a  southern  sun  spreads  around  you ; 
but  here,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  a  gayety  that  veils  the 
northern  nature  of  the  clime. 

As  the  population  of  the  Boulevards  is  the  lounging 


QUAI8    AMD   THE    TTTILERIES.  45 

population  of  Paris,  the  population  of  the  Quais  is 
rife  with  Parisian  business  and  activity :  as  the  one 
breathes  a  certain  ease,  the  other  moves  under  the 
spirit  of  agitation ;  everybody  here  has  something  to 
do,  something  to  sell,  something  to  buy,  somewhere 
to  go  ;  and  behind  this  living  wave,  ebbing  and  flowing, 
— this  moving  mass  of  white  caps,  dark  bonnets,  red 
feathers,  tattered  hats,  and  gleaming  casques, — rises 
darkly  the  old  city,  and  the  stately  Faubourg  St.  Ger- 
main. And  there  is  Ste.  Genevieve !  and  there  is 
Notre  Dame  !  the  tomb  of  Voltaire,  and  the  monument 
of  De  Sully — uniting  the  present  with  the  past, — the 
twelfth  century  with  the  eighteenth, — the  power  of 
literature  with  the  dominion  of  the  church.  One  finds 
a  happiness  and  a  glow  about  the  squalid  river  of  the 
Seine  which  all  our  wealth  and  grandeur  have  not 
bestowed  upon  the  magnificent  Thames.  The  broad 
quays  which  ennoble  the  aspect  of  this  miserable 
stream  betray  its  poverty, — its  poverty  as  the  canal 
of  commerce, — as  the  carrier  and  ministrant  of  that 
wealth  which  creates  the  magazine  and  fills  the  ware- 
house. But  there  is  another  wealth,  another  great- 
ness :  that  greatness  which  arises  from  the  cultivation  of 
the  arts,  from  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  the  beau- 
tiful ;  a  greatness  which  the  traveller  loves,  and  which 
the  statesman  should  cherish ;  a  greatness  which  is 
the  greatness  of  France,  and  before  which  you  bow  as 
you  see  the  Louvre  on  the  side  of  the  coal-wharf,  and 
find  the  powder-mill  replaced  by  the  Pantheon.  And 
now  look  to  the  palace,  which,  according  to  the  fable 
of  the  dervise,  has  been  of  late  years  a  caravanserai 
for  so  many  travellers  !  to  the  palace  where  kings  and 
water-carriers  have  so  lately  revelled  !*    A  short  time 

•  "  La  chambre  h  coucher  du  roi  6tait  pleine  de  porteurs  d*eaii,  qui 
ee  faisaient  rebondir  en  riant  sur  le  matelais  de  son  lit." — Chron.  de  la 
Revolution  de  Juillet,  1830. 

Francis  the  First  bought  the  Tuileries,  then  a  house  between  court 
and  garden,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  spot  where  tiles  ("  tuiles"\ 
were  manufactured  for  his  mother ;  Catherine  de  Medicis  pxirchasea 
the  building's  and  the  ground  in  the  vicinity,  and  laid  the  foundations 
Of  a  new  edifice,  which,  if  the  original  plans  of  Bullan  and  De  Lonne 


46  THE   CAPITAL, 

since,  and  Paris  was  alarmed  by  a  long  line  of  scaf- 
folding, behind  which  a  conspiracy  was  supposed 
planned  and  executing  against  the  liberties  of  the 
people.  At  length  the  plot  was  exposed ;  where  we 
presumed  ramparts  we  found  a  flower-garden :  the 
monarchy  this  time  merely  exposed  itself  to  the  re- 
proach of  bad  taste :  "  the  charta  insulted  was  the 
charta  of  le  N6tre  ;"  and  the  "  chef-d'oeuvre"  of  Phili- 
bert  de  Lorme,  too,  has  been  defaced,  but  not  with 
impunity.  The  young  man  yonder,  stretching  out  his 
hand  with  vehemence,  and  vociferating  impetuously  to 
his  companion,  and  the  old  man  there,  with  arms 
folded  and  shoulders  uplifted,  regard  the  filling  up  of 
that  colonnade  as  something  worse  than  a  *'ybwrnee"  of 
peers,  and  declare  that  "  in  France  the  arts  should  be 
as  inviolable  as  the  laws^  One  peculiarity  distin- 
guishes these  gardens,  the  last  refuge  of  aristocratical 
pretensions,  the  people — the  people  without  a  hat  and 
a  coat — are  forbidden  to  appear  in  them.  A  custom 
will  always  survive  a  constitution,  and  the  same  popu- 
lation that  in  the  three  days  of  July  stormed  the  Tuil- 
eries  in  defiance  of  an  army,  retreated  on  the  first  of 
August  before  the  solitary  sentinel  stationed  at  their 
gate. 

The   population  of  the  Tuileries  varies   naturally 

had  been  adopted,  would  have  been  even  larger  than  the  present  one. 
But  the  pavilion  in  the  middle  and  the  light  buildings  on  each  side 
of  it  were  all  which  formed  at  that  time,  and  for  many  years 
afterward,  the  Chateau  of  the  Tuileries.  It  was  not  till  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.  that  the  Tuileries  were  completed  by  Leveau.  Be- 
fore this  time  the  garden  was  separated  from  the  palace  by  a  street 
called  "Rue  des  Tuileries."  This  garden  at  that  time  contained 
a  menagerie,  an  orangery,  and  a  preserve  of  game  for  the  royal 
"chasse."  It  was  defended  by  a  high  wall,  a  moat,  and  a  bastion. 
Le  Notre  changed  all  this,  surrounding  the  garden  with  two  terraces 
planted  with  trees,  that  one  by  the  Seine  and  that  one  by  the  Rue  de 
RivoU,  called  from  the  old  convent  "  Terrace  des  Feuillans."  Here 
ran  the  gardens  of  the  *'  Feuillans"  and  the  "  Capucins,"  and  a  long 
court  which  led  to  the  old  '<  manages"  of  the  Tuileries.  On  this 
royal  and  religious  spot  was  erected  the  edifice  which  saw  the  de. 
s^ruction  of  the  monarchy  and  the  church, — the  edifice  in  which  sat 
the  constitutional  assembly,  the  legislative  assembly,  and  the  conven- 
tional assembly.  Occupied  by  the  Five  Hundred  during  the  Directory, 
it  shared  in  the  new  changes,  was  destroyed  with  its  masters,  and 
aflforded  Bonaparte  the  space  on  which  he  built  the  Rue  dc  Rivoli. 


QUAIS  AND   THE    TUILERIES.  47 

with  the  hour  and  the  heat.  The  morning  is  for  the 
sedate  and  serious  old  gentleman  ;  the  noon  for  the 
*'  bonne'''  and  the  children ;  the  afternoon  for  the  more 
ambitious  crowd,  in  whose  midnight  dreams  yonder 
walks  and  orange-trees  are  strangely  mingled.  There 
is  the  theatre  of  their  glory ! — the  theatre  on  which  a 
new  bonnet  is  to  be  tried,  a  new  compliment  to  be 
adventured ;  there  is  the  stage  where  the  elegance 
of  a  mistress  is  to  be  displayed,  the  reputation  of 
a  rival  to  be  destroyed.  But  if  the  Tuileries  are 
remarkable,  they  are  remarkable  not  only  as  the 
lounge  of  nursery  maids,  and  of  that  modern  race  of 
time-killers  who  go  to  these  gardens  rather  for  the 
sake  of  being  seen  than  of  being  amused ;  they  are 
remarkable  as  the  birth  of  a  new  epoch,  which  they 
still  represent, — the  epoch  of  gallantry  and  of  the  arts, 
of  Catherine  de  Medicis,  and  of  Marot — of  Marot.  who 
said  with  so  much  grace, 

"  Si  j'etais  roi  d'Asie, 
J'aimerais  mieux  quitter  mon  sceptre  que  ma  mie . 
L'homme  peut  ais6ment  dans  ce  mortel  sejour, 
Vivre  sans  un  royaume  et  non  pas  sans  amour : 
Ah !  le  jour  et  la  nuit  coulent  pleins  de  tristesse 
A  celui,  fut-il  Dieu,  qui  languit  sans  maitresse." 

Then  wrote  Rabelais  and  Montaigne ;  then  com- 
menced the  assemblies  which  intermingled  the  two 
sexes  ;  the  royal  and  courtly  assemblies  which  Bran- 
tome  defends  as  a  more  honest  system  of  libertinage 
than  that  which  flourished  under  the  Roi  des  Ribands  ;* 
then  Lescot  revived  the  science  of  architecture  in  the 
Louvre,  and  Goujon  the  graceful  art  of  sculpture  ;  and 
bishops  proud  of  their  disobedient  beards,!  and  ladies 


*  Tu  voudrais  sgavoir  qu'estoit  il  plus  louable  au  roy  ou  recevoir 
una  si  honneste  troupe  de  dames  et  damoiselles  en  sa  cour  ou  bien 
de  suivre  les  erres  des  anciens  roys  du  temps  pass6  qui  admettaient 
tant  de  p.  .  .  ordinairement  en  leur  suite,  desquelles  le  roy  des  Ri- 
bauds  avait  charge  et  soin  de  leur  fair e  despartir  quartier  et  logis,  et 
1^  commander  de  leur  faire  justice  si  on  leur  fesait  quelques  torts. 

.  .  .  Et  que  ces  Dames  ^tant  tr^z  nettcs  et  saines  {an  moina 
aucunes  ne  pouvaient,  &c.  &c.)— Vide  Brantome,  t.  v. 

t  The  custom  of  long  beards,  which  commenced  under  Francis  I., 


48  THE    CAPITAL. 

under  the  voluptuous  sanctuary  of  the  mask,*  filled  the 
churches,  loitered  on  the  new  quay,  or  circulated  in 
tlie  dark  and  narrow  streets  peopled  with  magicians, 
and  sorcerers,  and  devils  ;t  epoch  celebrated  for  the 
invention  of  silver  forks  and  silk  stockings, — epoch 
of  necromancy,  of  idolatry,  of  pleasure,  and  of  religion ; 
epoch  when  you  might  have  seen  the  farce  ''  Du  dehat 
d'un  jeune  moine  et  d^un  viel  gen-d'arme  par  devant  le 
Dieu  Cupidon  pour  une  Jille ;"  epoch,  when  the  imagi- 
nation, still  given  to  magic  and  devotion,  was  begin 
ning  to  decorate  debauch !  and  cruelty  and  lust,  pas- 
sions which  nature  seems  to  have  intermingled,  had 
each  their  horrible  sacrifices,  and  their  pompous  and 
voluptuous  fetes ;  while  now  the  mistress  of  Henry 
II., J  now  the  mother  of  Charles  IX.,  demanded  holo- 
causts for  their  revels,  and  mingled  the  accents  of 
pleasure  with  the  cries  for  Protestant  blood.  And 
with  the  arts  came  the  vices  of  Italy :  robed  in  sack- 
cloth, the  chaplet  at  his  neck,  the  sovereign  of  France^ 
paraded  the  streets  of  Paris  ;  or,  dressed  as  a  woman, 
his  breast  open  and  bare,  and  adorned  with  necklaces, 
his  hair  died,  his  eyelids  and  his  face  besmeared  and 
painted,  delivered  himself  up  in  the  secret  recesses 
of  his  palace  to  the  infamies  of  his  "mignons;" 
among  whom  (wild  mixture  of  debauch  and  devotion !) 
he  distributed  the  relics  and  the  blessed  beads  soli- 
cited from  Rome.  Lo  !  by  the  side  of  the  bonfire,  the 
banquet ! — by  the  side  of  the  temple  dedicated  to  the 
holy  worship  of  the  meek  Jesus,  the  column]]  conse- 
crated to  the  impieties  of  profane  astrology !     And  yet 

who  allowed  his  beard  to  grow  in  order  to  hide  a  wound,  became 
general.  Adopted  by  the  clergy,  it  was  forbidden  by  the  Parliament, 
the  respectable  magistracy  of  which  manfully  persevered  in  shaving, 

*  Masks,  which  came  into  fashion  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
Francis  I.,  were  intended  to  preserve  the  complexion,  and  persevered 
in  for  the  sake  of  other  conveniences. 

t  De  I'Estoile,  in  speaking  of  a  supposed  magician  hung  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  IX.,  says,  that  according  to  that  magician  there 
were  thirty  thousand  sorcerers  then  in  Paris. 

%  Diane  de  Poitiers. 

^  Henry  III. — De  I'Estoile,  vol.  iv. 

!i  Erected  by  Catherine  de  Medicis,  for  her  astrological  obsor- 
vations. 


QUAIS    AND    THE    TUILERIES.  49 

when  Catherine  from  yonder  height  looked  down  on 
the  masked  and  mysterious  city  at  her  feet,  she  saw 
the  same  people — here  occupied  with  magic,  there 
assassinating  from  superstition ;  she  saw  the  same 
people  that  we  see  now,  that  we  saw  but  a  very  short 
time  ago,  dressed  in  the  costume  of  the  Carnaval,* 
and  pulling  down  the  palace  of  their  archbishop. 
"July  4,  1548,  the  scholars  armed,  rushed  fiercely 
upon  the  Abbaye  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  besieged  it, 
made  breaches  in  its  walls,  broke  down  the  trees,  the 
trellices,  demolished  the  neighbouring  houses.  In 
January,  1549 — in  May,  1550 — similar  seditions  ;  but 
the  scholars  were  not  alone  on  these  occasions  ;  the 
working  classes  (ouvriers),  the  shop-boys  {varlets  de 
boutiques)^  joined  with  the  mob.  In  1557  the  troubles 
became  yet  more  serious."  ....  The  same  troubles 
preceded  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. : — for  every  period 
of  improvement  is  a  period  of  agitation ;  and  the 
brave  and  capricious  populace,  the  rebellious  and  tu- 
multuous youth  of  Paris,  ever  ready  for  battle,  ever 
eager  of  change,  ever  impatient  of  rule,  receiving  the 
character  of  each  era  of  civilization,  have  always  re- 
tained their  own ;  have  always  been  valiant,  fickle,  in- 
solent, and  gay. 

It  was  amid  this  mixture  of  gross  and  barbarous 
luxury,  of  abandoned  license,  of  mysterious  rites,  of 
terrible  and  sanguinary  superstition,  that  the  arts,  as  I 
have  said,  arbse  ;  and  that  love,  no  longer  the  guerdon 
of  adventurous  chivalry,  became  the  prize  of  the  gentle 
smile,  the  whispered  compliment,  and  the  graceful 
carriage.  Born  of  this  epoch,  the  Tuileries,  I  repeat, 
represent  its  character.  The  ghosts  of  the  Medici 
may  still  rove  complacently  through  their  gardens,  and 
amid  the  statues  of  ancient  Greece  move  a  crowd  that 
would  have  done  honour  to  the  groves  of  Epicurus. 

*  The  most  formitJable,  and  certainly  the  most  picturesque,  of 
modern  "  ^meutes."  Here  you  saw  the  mob  puUingdown  the  "  fleurs- 
de-lys,"  and  ransacking  the  episcopal  palace ;  here  you  saw  the  har- 
lequin and  the  domino,  and  all  the  buffooneiies  of  a  Parisian  maa- 
querade. 

Vol.  L—C  5 


60  THK    CAPITAL. 

I  have  been  anxious  to  give  a  general  idea  of  the 
aspect  of  Paris,  as  it  is  in  such  descriptions,  as  well 
as  in  more  philosophical  disquisitions,  that  the  char- 
acter of  a  people  is  to  be  found ;  but  I  have  no  inten- 
tion to  speak  of  all  that  is  interesting  or  curious  in 
this  metropolis.  Who  has  not  been  fatigued  with  de- 
tails of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  the  Luxembourg,  the 
Louvre,  and  the  numberless  "  et  caetera"  of  modern 
tourists  ? 


DIVISIONS, 

Divided  m  1702  ;  in  1789,  by  the  Convention — More  divided  by  man- 
ners than  laws — Description  of  the  Chauss^e  d'Antin — The  Fau- 
bourg St.  Germain— The  Quartier  of  the  Students — The  Marais 
—Faubourg  St.  Antoine — The  old  city. 

This  city  has  undergone  a  variety  of  divisions.  In 
1702  it  was  divided  by  Louis  XIV.  into  twenty  "quar- 
tiers"  or  districts ;  a  division  which  did  not  suffice  in 
1789,  when  it  was  necessary  to  make  a  new  distribution, 
in  order  to  elect  the  deputies  of  the  States-General. 
Finally,  by  a  decree  of  the  Convention,  Paris  was  formed 
into  twelve  municipalities,  each  of  which  contained 
four  "  quartiers ;"  and  this  arrangement  is  still  main- 
tained. But  it  is  not  so  much  by  its  laws  as  by  its 
manners  that  Paris  is  divided.  There  are  districts 
differing  as  widely,  one  from  the  other,  in  the  ideas, 
the  habits,  and  the  appearance  of  their  inhabitants,  as 
in  the  height  and  size  of  their  buildings,  or  the  width 
and  cleanliness  of  their  streets.  The  Chaussee  d'Antin 
breathes  the  atmosphere  of  the  Bourse,  the  Palais 
Royal,  and  the  Boulevards  ;  it  is  the  district  of  bankers, 
stock-brokers,  generals  of  the  empire,  rich  tradespeople 
— and  represents  May-fair  and  Russell-square  inter- 
mingled. The  Chaussee  d'Antin  is  the  district  fullest 
of  life,  most  animated,  most  rife  with  the  spirit  of 


DIVISIONS.  61 

progress,  of  change,  of  luxury,  of  elegance.  Here 
you  will  find  all  new  buildings,  all  new  arcades,  all 
new  passages ;  here  first  appear  all  new  inventions ; 
here  are  first  opened  all  new  shops  ;  here  are  given  the 
richest  and  most  splendid  balls ;  here  you  meet  a  race 
who  go  to  bed  late,  frequent  the  theatres,  fill  the  opera, 
whitewash  their  houses  every  year,  and  new  paint  their 
carriages ;  here  you  see  the  insolence  of  "  parvenu" 
power — the  contempt  of  the  thick  lip  and  the  turned- 
up  nose — contempt  which  is  adequately  returned  by 
the  possessor  of  yon  dim  and  vast  hotel  in  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Germain — for  we  are  come  to  another  dis- 
trict— to  the  district  of  the  long  and  silent  street ;  of 
the  meager  repast  and  the  large  and  well-trimmed 
garden;  of  the  great  court-yard;  of  the  broad  and 
dark  staircase.  This  is  the  "  quartier"  inhabited  by 
the  administrations — by  the  old  nobility  ;  this  is  the 
"quartier"  which  manifests  no  signs  of  change,  no 
widening  and  straightening  of  streets,  no  piercing  of 
*passages  :  it  hardly  possesses  a  "  restaurant"  of  note, 
and  has  but  one  unfrequented  theatre.  And  now,  not 
far  from  where  we  are,  is  the  "  quartier"  of  the 
students  ;  "  quartier"  at  once  poor  and  popular ;  amid 
which — monument  legitimate  to  the  district,  inhabited 
by  that  brave  and  exalted  youth  who  knew  how .  to 
vanquish  for  an  opinion  in  July,  to  suffer  for  an  opinion 
in  June — monument  legitimate  to  the  district,  inhabited 
by  those  eloquent  and  illustrious  professors  who  give 
to  France  a  glory  superior  to  that  of  arms — rises  the 
Pantheon !  And  yonder  is  the  Observatory,  and  the 
Jar  din  des  Plantes,  and  the  memory  of  Cuvier. 

Then  there  is  the  Marais — the  retreat  of  the  old- 
fashioned  judge  and  the  old-fashioned  merchant,  where 
the  manners  have  been  changed  almost  as  little  as  the 
houses,  by  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century — 
no  carriages,  no  equipages,  not  a  solitary  cabriolet  in 
the  streets !  All  is  stillj  silent ;  you  are  among  the 
customs  of  the  provincial  village  and  the  grand  hotels 
of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.  Then  there  is  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Antoine — residence  of  those  immense  masses 
C2 


62  THK    CAPITAL. 

which  an  event  so  mysteriously  produces — of  those 
masses  that  reigned  under  Robespierre,  and  which 
Bonaparte,  after  Waterloo,  refused  to  summon  to  his 
assistance.  And  behold!  the  ancient  city  of  Paris, 
"  the  dear  Lutetia"  of  Julian,  surrounded  by  the  Seine, 
and  filled  by  a  vast  and  wretched  population !  There, 
proud  amid  the  sordid  roofs  around  them,  rise  the 
graceful  and  splendid  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  that 
temple  of  the  twelfth  century,*  which,  in  spite  of  the 
Madeleine,  has  not  been  surpassed  in  the  nineteenth ! 
— and  there  is  the  Hotel  Dieu,  the  antique  hospital  to 
which  Philippe  Auguste  gave  the  straw  that  had  cov- 
ered the  royal  chambers  of  the  palace  ! — and  there  is 
the  Palais  de  Justice,  where  sat  the  parliament  of 
Broussel,  remarkable  in  the  Chronicle  of  De  Retz ! 


ET  CJETERA. 

Sic.     &LC.     (fee.     &c.     &c. 

Though  a  nation  perpetually  changes,  the  features  remain  the  same 
— Letter  of  a  Sicihan  gentleman  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV. — The 
likeness  between  Paris  then  and  Paris  now — We  see  what  new 
ideas  and  laws  have  changed— What  they  have  left  unaltered— 
The  character  of  the  French  displayed  in  dift'erent  circumstances 
— Aspect  of  Paris  in  many  respects  the  same — Manners  of  people 
illustrated  by  facts— What  the  Revolution  did — The  manners  of 
the  old  aristocracy  have  had  greater  effect  upon  the  manners  of  the 
middUng  classes,  than  the  manners  of  the  middling  classes  upon 
those  of  the  old  aristocracy — The  personages  who  have  disap 
peared — What  you  now  see  in  their  places — Many  places  where 
people  may  hve  upon  as  little,  no  place  where  they  live  so  mag- 
nificently upon  a  little  as  at  Paris — Mons.  Bontin — Few  rich  m 
Paris,  few  poor — ^The  climate — The  hero  of  a  fine  day — The  lion 
— The  student — Future  of  Paris — The  past. 

I  CONFESS,  for  my  own  part,  that  I  have  often  been 
struck  by  the  resemblance  which  time  (that  touches 
and  alters,  piece  by  piece,  almost  all  that  relates  to 

•  Built  by  Maurice  de  Sully  in  11G3. 


NOW    AND    FORMERLY.  .'^3 

the  existence  of  a  people)  still  leaves  between  century 
and  century.  During  the  life  of  a  nation,  as  during  the 
life  of  an  individual,  the  body  changes  more  than  once 
every  particle  of  its  materials,  but  the  features,  the 
proportions,  the  likeness  remain ;  and  as  on  looking  to 
the  dial  we  discover  from  the  hour  which  is  marked 
the  course  which  the  hand  has  had  to  run,  so  in 
regarding  a  country  with  intelligence,  we  may  divine 
its  history  from  the  newspapers  on  our  table.  The 
letter  of  a  Sicilian  gentleman  gives  the  following  de- 
scription of  Paris  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  "  It  is 
no  exaggeration,"  says  he,  "  to  remark  that  Paris  is 
one  vast  hotel.  You  see  everywhere  '  cafes,' '  estami- 
nets,'  taverns,  and  the  frequenters  of  taverns.  The 
kitchens  smoke  at  all  times,  and  at  all  times  eating  is 
going  on.  The  luxury  of  Paris  is  something  extraor- 
dinary and  enormous,  its  wealth  would  enrich  three 
cities.  On  all  sides  you  are  surrounded  by  rich  and 
splendid  shops,  where  every  thing  is  sold  that  you 
don't  want,  as  well  as  every  thing  which  you  require. 
All  would  wish  to  live  splendidly,  and  the  poorest  gen- 
tleman, jealous  of  his  neighbour,  would  live  as  well  as 
he  does.  Ribands,  looking-glasses,  are  things  without 
which  the  French  could  not  live.  Fashion  is  the 
veritable  demon  of  the  nation  ;  one  sex  is  as  vain  and 
as  desirous  of  pleasure  as  the  other ;  and  if  the  women 
never  stir  without  a  mirror,  the  men  also  may  be  seen 
arranging  and  combing  their  wigs  publicly  in  the 
streets.  There  is  not  a  people  so  imperious  and  so 
audacious  as  these  Parisians ;  they  are  proud  of  their 
very  fickleness,  and  say  that  they  are  the  only  persons 
in  the  world  who  can  break  their  promises  with  honour. 
In  vain  you  look  for  modesty,  wisdom,  persons  who 
have  nothing  to  do"  (a  Sicilian  is  speaking),  "  or  men 
who  have  grown  old.  But  if  you  do  not  find  modesty, 
wisdom,  or  old  age,  you  find  obsequiousness,  gallantry, 
and  politeness.  Go  into  a  shop,  and  you  are  cajoled 
into  buying  a  thousand  things  you  never  dreamed  of, 
before  you  obtain  the  article  you  want.  The  manner 
of  the  higher  classes  is  something  charming ;  there 
5* 


54  ^  THK    CAPITAL. 

are  masters  who  teach  civility,  and  a  pretty  girl  the 
other  day  offered  to  sell  me  compliments.'^  The  women 
dote  upon  little  dogs.  They  command  their  husbands, 
and  obey  nobody.  They  dress  with  grace.  We  see 
them  at  all  hours,  and  they  dote  on  conversation.  As 
to  love — they  love,  and  listen  to  their  lovers,  without 
much  difficulty;  but  they  never  love  long,  and  they 
never  love  enough.  I  have  not  seen  a  jealous  hus- 
band, nor  a  man  who  thinks  himself  unhappy  and  dis- 
honoured because  his  wife  is  unfaithful. 

"  During  the  '  Careme'  the  people  go  in  the  morning 
to  a  sermon,  in  the  evening  to  a  comedy,  with  equal 
zeal  and  devotion.  The  abbes  are  in  great  number, 
and  the  usual  resource  of  ladies  in  affliction.  The 
young  men  are  perpetually  in  the  racket-court ;  the  old 
men  pass  their  time  at  cards,  at  dice,  and  in  talking 
over  the  news  of  the  day.  The  Tuileries  are  the  re- 
sort of  the  idle  and  those  who  wish,  without  taking  any 
trouble  about  it,  to  be  amused.  It  is  there  that  you 
laugh,  joke,  make  love,  talk  of  what  is  doing  in  the 
city,  of  what  is  doing  in  the  army ;  decide,  criticise, 
dispute,  deceive.  Chocolate,  tea,  and  coffee  are  very 
much  in  vogue  ;  but  coffee  is  preferred  to  either  tea  or 
chocolate  ;  it  is  thought  a  remedy  for  low  spirits.  A 
lady  learned  the  other  day  that  her  husband  had  been 
killed -in  battle.  'Ah,  unhappy  that  I  am  !'  said  she, 
'  quick,  bring  me  a  cup  of  coffee  !'  The  inhabitants 
of  Paris  are  lodged  upon  the  sides  of  the  bridges,  and 
even  upon  the  tops  and  tiles  of  the  houses.  Although 
it  does  not  rain  often,  you  can't  help  walking  in  the 
mud ;  for  all  the  filth  of  the  town  is  thrown  out  into 
the  streets,  which  it  is  impossible  for  the  magistrates, 
however  strict,  to  keep  clean.  The  ladies  never  go 
out  but  on  mules  ;  the  gentlemen  walk  in  large  high 
boots.  The  hackney-coaches  are  old,  battered,  and 
covered  with  mud.  The  horses  which  draw  them 
have  no  flesh  on  their  bones.  The  coachmen  are 
brutal ;  they  have  a  voice  so  hoarse,  and  so  terrible, 

*  There  is  still,  however,  I  believe,  a  "  Professeur  deMaintien"  at 
the  '*  Conservatoire  Royal  de  Musique." 


NOW    AND    FORMKULY.  55 

and  the  smacking  of  their  whips  so  horribly  increases 
the  noise,  that  no  sooner  is  the  rattling  machine  in 
movement  than  you  imagine  all  the  Furies  at  work  in 
giving  to  Paris  the  sounds  of  the  infernal  regions." 

Such  was  Paris  above  a  century  ago ;  let  any  one 
reflect  upon  the  immense  changes  that  have  taken 
place  since  that  time.  Let.  any  one  reflect  that  we 
have  had  since  then,  Law,  Voltaire,  Rousseau  ;  the 
orgies  and  bankruptcy  of  the  regent,  the  reign  of 
Louis  XV.,  the  decapitation  of  Louis  XVI.,  the  wars 
and  terrors  of  the  republic,  the  tyranny  of  the  empire, 
the  long  struggle  of  the  Restoration ;  let  any  one  re- 
flect, that  since  then  have  been  born  the  doctrines  of 
equality  and  liberty,  which  will  probably  change  the 
destinies  of  the  world ;  let  any  one,  I  say,  reflect  on 
all  this,  and  tell  me,  as  he  reads  the  passage  I  have 
cited,  whether  the  resemblance  is  not  strong  between 
the  past  and  the  present — whether,  in  looking  at  Paris 
under  Louis  Philippe,  he  cannot  trace  all  the  main  fea- 
tures of  its  picture  taken  during  the  time  of  Louis  XIV. 

Paris  is  certainly  altered  ;  the  ladies  no  longer  ride 
on  mules,  nor  do  the  gentlemen  arrange  their  head- 
dress in  the  public  streets.  The  shop-keepers  have 
lost  their  extraordinary  civility,  the  "noblesse"  have 
lost  the  exquisite  polish  of  their  ancient  manners  ; 
there  are  no  longer  masters  to  teach  you  civility,  nor 
young  ladies  who  sell  you  compliments.  The  Pa- 
risians under  a  serious  government  are  not  so  frivolous 
as  of  yore :  the  vanity  then  confined  to  the  toilet 
and  the  drawing-room  has  taken  a  prouder  flight,  and 
prances  on  the  "  Champ  de  Mars,"  or  harangues  in 
the  Chambre  des  Deputes.  The  passions  are  the 
same,  but  a  new  machine  works  them  into  a  dilTerent 
shape,  and  produces  another  manufacture  from  the 
same  materials.  We  see  the  change  that  other  laws 
and  other  ideas  produce,  and  the  popular  spirit  which 
has  elevated  the  character  of  the  people*  has  civilized 

*  "  We  see,"  says  Mercier,  who  wrote  just  previous  to  the  revolu- 
tion of  1789,  "  we  see,  at  every  step  we  take  in  the  mud,  that  ih4 
veople  who  goon  foot  have  no  share  in  the  government." 


66  THE    CAPITAL. 

the  hackney-coaches,  widened  the  streets,  and  saved 
two  hundred  per  annum  of  the  lives  of  his  majesty's 
subjects.*  We  see  what  new  ideas  and  new  laws 
have  changed,  but  we  see  also  how  much  new  ideas 
and  laws  have  left  unaltered.  The  wish  to  outvie,  the 
desire  to  please,  the  fondness  for  decoration,  the  easy 
transition  from  one  passion  or  one  pursuit  to  another,  the 
amour  proprc,  the  fickleness  of  the  Parisian,  are  still  as 
I  visible  as  they  were  under  the  grand  monarque  :  while, 
alas  !  the  morals  of  society  (if  I  may  venture  to  say  so) 
even  yet  remind  you  of  the  saying  of  Montesquieu,  "  Que 
le  Franpais  ne  parle  jamais  de  sa  femme,  parcequ'il  a 
peur  d'en  parler  devant  les  gens  qui  la  connaissent 
mieux  que  lui." 

I  have  said  that  the  Parisian  is  almost  as  fickle  as 
he  was.  During  the  old  hierarchy  of  ranks  and  pro- 
fessions he  could  be  fickle  in  little  but  his  pleasures. 
The  career  which  conducted  him  to  the  grave  was 
traced  at  his  cradle,  and  if  he  were  born  a  footman,  all 
he  could  hope  was — to  die  a  butler.  The  life  of  the 
Parisian  has  changed  ;  you  may  see  it  in  the  aspect 
of  Paris  itself.  A  new  spirit, — a  spirit  of  commerce, 
of  gain,  of  business,  has  made  the  city  and  its  citizens 
different  from  what  they  were  :  the  Bourse  is  the 
monument  of  the  epoch ;  even  the  firework  and  the 
dance  have  been  driven  from  their  old  resort,  and  lo  ! 
Beaujon  and  Tivolif  are  destroyed  by  a  building  specu- 
lation !  But  the  same  character  which  presided  over 
the  amusements  has  entered  into  the  affairs  of  this 
volatile  and  light-hearted  people,  and  among  the  causes 
of  that  distress  so  severely  felt  in  1830,  we  had  to  re- 
mark the  careless,  unreflecting,  and  variable  dispo- 
sition which  induced  the  capitalist  now  to  enter  into  a 
business  with  which  he  was  wholly  unacquainted,  now 
to  transport  his  capital,  suddenly  and  without  reflec- 
tion, from  one  branch  of  industry  to  another  ;  impatient 

*  Two  hundred  was  the  average  calculation  of  persons  run  over 
in  the  streets  of  Paris ;  this  species  of  amusement  was  much  in 
fashion  during  the  latter  days  of  the  old  regime. 

f  Public  gardens. 


NOW    AND    FORMKRLY.  57 

of  delay,  uncalculating  of  consequences,  and  inces- 
santly tormented  by  the  unproductive  appetite  for  nov- 
elty and  adventure.*  Da  reste,  Paris  might  still  pass 
for  a  vast  hotel.  There  are  eight  hundred  "  cafes," 
and  one  thousand  "restaurants,"  and  here  you  are 
served  on  silver,  amid  gilding,  and  painting,  and  glass  ; 
while  the  "  gar9on"  who  says,  "  Que  voulez-vous,  mon- 
sieur ?^^  presents  a  "carte"  with  upwards  of  two  hun- 
dred articles,!  and  lo  !  there  are  still  "  cafes"  and 
"  estaminets,"  taverns  and  the  frequenters  of  taverns  ; 
and  it  is  at  night,  as  you  see  these  places  brilliant  with 
light,  filled  with  guests,  surrounded  by  loungers,  that 
you  catch  the  character  of  Paris,  such  as  it  is,  such  as 
it  was  a  century  ago,  when  tempted  by  Law  with  those 
prints  of  Louisiana,'!  in  which  a  people,  as  the  "  hcau 
idcaV  of  happiness,  were  represented  indulging  them- 
selves in  the  sun ;  rich  without  labour,  and  deriving 
most  of  their  pleasures  from  their  senses.  In  this  city 
there  are  one  hundred  and  ninety-two§  places  of  pub- 
lic amusement, — of  amusement  for  the  people,  with- 
out counting  the  innumerable  "  guinguettes"  at  the 
barriers,  Avhere  the  populace  usually  hold  their  Sunday 
revels.  To  those  who  are  fond  of  facts  the  manners 
of  Paris  may  be  thus  described  : — 

There  are  twenty  thousand  persons  every  night  at 
the  theatres  ;  five  public  libraries  are  constantly  full ; 
and  one  hundred  cabinets  de  lecture.  You  will  find 
about  an  equal  number  of  celebrated  dancing-masters, 

*  M.  Beres,  "  Causes  du  Malaise,  1831." 

t  In  1819  Paris  received  801,524  hectolitres  de  vin,  70,819  oxen, 
6,481  cows,  67,719  calves,  329,000  sheep,  64,822  pigs  and  wild 
boars,  1 ,267,364  kilogrammes  of  dry  cheese,  and  above  479,000  pounds 
of  bread  per  day,  or  113,880,000  kilogrammes  per  year;  add  to  this 
323,610  hectolitres  of  potatoes.  Besides  which  were  sold  chickens, 
ducks,  game,  &c.  to  the  amount  of  7,601,402  francs,  butter  to  the 
amount  of  7,105,531,  eggs  3,676,302  francs. — See  note  (in  Appendix, 
under  Paris)  for  principal  articles  of  consumption  before  the  revolu- 
tion of  1789,  and  for  a  bill  of  fare  at  a  restaurant's. 

%  One  of  the  devices  of  Law  to  favour  the  success  of  his  scheme 
was  to  publish  these  prints,  addressed  to  the  passions  and  disposi 
tions  of  the  populace  he  seduced. 

6  A  calculation  in  1817,  since  which  they  are  much  augmented 
C3 


58  THE    CAPITAL. 

and  of  celebrated  teachers  of  mathematics  ;*  and  the 
municipality  pays  one-third  more  for  its  fetes  than  it 
does  for  its  religion. \ 

A  passion  for  enjoyment,  a  contempt  for  life  without 
pleasure,  a  want  of  religion  and  morality  fill  the  gam- 
bling-house, the  morgue,  and  the  "  enfants  trouves." 
Have  such  beei:i  the  effects  of  the  revolution  ?  ,  .  .  . 
No  ;  the  revolution  has  had  little,  to  do  with  these  mis- 
fortunes. Before  the  revolution  there  were  forty  thou- 
sand prostitutes  ;|  there  are  now  six  thousand.  Be- 
fore the  revolution  there  were  fifteen  licensed  "  maisons 
de  jeu  ;"  there  are  now  eight.  "  Before  the  revolution," 
observes  Mercier,  ^'  all  the  money  of  the  provinces 
passed  to  the  capital,  and  all  the  money  of  the  capital 
passed  to  its  courtesans." — "  Before  the  revolution,"  says 
Chamfort,  "  I  remember  to  have  seen  a  man  who  quitted 
the  ladies  at  the  opera,  because  they  had  no  more  hon- 
our  than  the  women  of  the  world.''''  It  is  not  then  to  be 
lamented  that  political  events  have  changed  the  man- 
ners of  the  Parisians  so  much,  but  that  they  have 
changed  their  manners  so  little  ;  this  is  the  subject  for 
lamentation.  There  is  a  change,  however,  to  which 
political  events  have  no  doubt  contributed,  but  which, 
during  the  latter  years  of  the  old  government,  time  and 
the  character  of  the  French  were  tending  to  produce. 
The  gradual  fusion  of  the  different  classes,  which 
ancient  usages  had  kept  apart,  would,  without  the 
shock  that  blended  and  confused  all  ranks  violently 
together,  have  naturally  given  to  one  set  of  persons 
many  of  the  ideas  and  habits  of  another.  You  see  no 
longer  in  Paris  a  nobility  that  lives  upon  credit,  and 
boasts  of  its  ruin  with  ostentation.^  The  families  that 
still  inhabit  the  great  hotels  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Ger- 
main are  more  orderly,  more  economical,  more  moral 


*  I  have  taken  this  from  *'  Le  Livre  d'Adresses." — "  Livre,"  says 
Fontenelle,  "  qui  contient  le  plus  dev^rit^s." 

t  See  expenses  of  the  city  of  Paris. 

t  This  calculation  is  given  by  Mirabeau. 

^  On  vit  sur  credit  ...  on  public  avec  ostentation  qu'on  est 
ruin6.     .  .  — See  Mercier,  Tableau  de  Paris. 


NOW    AND    FOIiMK.HLY.  59 

in  Their  habits,  than  heretofore.  But  as  in  a  volup- 
tuous people  the  habits  of  the  lower  classes  mount  up 
to  the  higher,  so  in  a  vain  nation  the  habits  of  the 
higher  classes  descend  more  naturally  to  the  lower. 
I  The  manners  of  the  old  aristocracy  then  have  had  a 
1  greater  effect  upon  the  manners  of  the  middling  classes, 
'  than  the  manners  of  the  middling  classes  have  had 
upon  those  of  the  aristocracy.  Among  the  nobility  of 
the  stock-exchange,  the  office,  and  the  counter,  there 
reigns  a  luxury  at  present  which,  sometimes  sighed 
for  by  such  persons,  was  rarely  seen  of  old.  If  you 
want  a  proof  of  this,  you  have  the  best, — you  have  the 
theatres,  where  the  old  scenery,  the  scenery  which  rep- 
resented the  apartments  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  bour^ 
geoisie  of  the  ancient  regime,  too  costly  for  the  first, 
too  meager  for  the  last,  is  obliged  to  be  laid  aside,  in 
order  to  give  place  to  new  decorations,  where  Mon- 
sieur Magnon  and  Monsieur  de  Montmorency  the 
rich  "  notaire"  and  the  rich  "  noble,"  equally  display 
an  elegant  opulence  unaccompanied  by  pomp.  Wealth 
has  lest  its  ancient  and  aristocratic  splendour,  but,  in 
becoming  more  citizen-like  in  its  air,  it  has  become 
Imore  complete  and  finished  in  its  details.  "There 
was  greater  state  in  my  time  among  the  rich,"  said  an 
old  gentleman  to  me  the  other  day,  "more  horses, 
more  plate,  more  servants  ;  but  the  table-cloth  was 
not  so  fine  and  so  clean,  the  rooms  were  not  so  well 
lighted.  The  '  bourgeoisie,'  however,  were  a  differ- 
ent race  ;  they  lived  frugally  and  laid  by  their  money, 
not  with  the  idea  of  becoming  gentlemen  themselves, 
but  with  the  hope  and  expectation  that  their  great- 
grandchildren might  become  so.  People  rose  gradually ; 
the  son  of  a  shopkeeper  purchased  a  '  charge,'  his 
son  purchased  one  higher,  and  thus  by  degrees  the 
family  which  had  begun  at  the  shop  rose  to  the  magis- 
tracy and  the  parliament."  The  diffusion  of  know- 
ledge, the  division  of  fortunes,  have  descended  and 
spread  tastes,  formerly  more  exaggerated  and  more 
confined.  The  few  have  lost  a  habit  of  extravagance, 
— the  many  have  gained  a  habit  of  expense.     There 


60  THE    CAPITAL. 

is  a  smaller  number  of  persons  who  squander  away 
their  fortune, — there  is  a  smaller  number  of  persons 

(who  save.  In  this,  as  in  every  thing  else,  the  striking 
characteristic  of  Paris, — of  Paris  in  1834, — is  the 
.  kind  of  universal  likeness  that  reigns  throughout  it. 
iThe  great  mass  of  Parisians  (whether  we  observe  their 
habits,  their  manners,  or  their  language)  are  so  many 
casts  struck  from  the  same  die. 

The  grand  seigneur  on  his  charger,  covered  with 
pearls,  and  dressed  in  a  coat  that  cost  him  the  price 
of  an  election  (57,000  francs*),  was  seen  no  more  after 
the  early  days  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  The  arch- 
bishop, with  his  ecclesiastic  pomp, — the  courtier  with 
his  coach  and  six,  his  splendid  liveries,  and  his  running 
footmen,  disappeared  shortly  after  1789.  The  marshal 
of  the  empire,  with  his  fierce  familiarity,  his  prancing 
horses,  and  his  military  magnificence,  bade  adieu  to 
Paris  in  1817.  The  old  provincial  noble,  stiif  in  the 
rattling  carriage  magnificently  empanelled,  proud  of 
his  long  genealogy,  his  written  discourse,  the  smile 
of  the  minister,  and  the  praise  of  the  "  Quotidienne," 
has  vanished  from  the  streets  since  1830;  and  lo ! 
before  you  are  the  almost  undistinguishable  mass  of 
eighty  thousand  national  guards,  and  fifteen  thousand 
electors !  In  this  community  are  confounded  jour- 
nalists, generals,  bankers,  barbers,  the  richest  capi- 
talist, and  the  poorest  patentee ;  all  classes  are  com- 
prised in  one  immense  middle  class, — a  middle  class 
not,  like  the  middle  class  of  England,  merely  occupied 
in  making  money,  and  bom  of  parents  who  have  spent 
their  lives  in  the  same  pursuit,  but  a  middle  class  of  all 
degrees  and  all  professions, — a  middle  class  that  does 
not  stand  between  the  gentry  and  the  people,  but  be- 
tween the  mob  and  the  monarch.  In  the  streets,  the 
walks,  the  theatres, — this  class, — sauntering  on  the 
Boulevards, — laughingloud  at  the  Varietes, — undressed 
at  the  opera, — spreads  everywhere  its  own  easy  and 
unceremonious  air  ;  and  Paris  is  fashioned  to  its  habits, 

*  See  Bassompi^rre,  t.  i.  p.  201. 


NOW    AND    FORMERLY  61 

as  it  was  formerly  to  the  habits  of  tlie  spendthrift 
"  noble"  and  the  sober  "  bourgeois ;"  and  the  same 
causes  that  have  carried  more  seriousness  into  one 
portion  of  society,  have  carried  more  amusement  into 
another.  Few  are  poor,  few  are  rich  ;  many  are  anx- 
ious to  enjoy ;  and  every  thing  is  contrived  to  favour 
this  combination  of  poverty  and  pleasure.  There  are 
many  places  where  a  person  can  live  upon  as  little, 
but  there  is  no  place  where  a  person  can  live  so  mag- 
nijlccntly  upon  a  little  as  at  Paris.  It  is  not  the  neces- 
saries that  are  cheap,  but  the  superabundances.  Mon- 
sieur Boutin,  an  old  bachelor,  whose  few  remaining 
locks  are  carefully  adjusted,  prefers  enjoying  his  rent 
of  eighty  napoleons  a  year  in  idleness,  to  gaining  six 
times  as  much  by  an  occupation.  You  conclude  im- 
mediately that  M,  Bontin  is  a  man  who  has  acquired 
in  the  world  the  best  rules  of  philosophy,  that  he  is  a 
sample  of  unsophisticated  tastes,  and  that  it  is  precisely 
the  same  thing  to  him  whether  he  dine  upon  a  "  su- 
preme de  volaille"  at  the  restaurant's,  or  crunch  a  hard 
piece  of  dry  bread  in  solitary  discomfort.  Here  is 
the  mistake  ;  Monsieur  Bontin  dines  not  at  Yery's,  but 
at  La  Place  des  Petits  P^res ;  this  is  all  the  differ- 
ence. He  pays  twenty-two  sous,  instead  of  eight 
francs,  for  his  soup,  his  two  dishes,  his  wine,  and  his 
dessert.  You  say  that  the  meat  is  bad,  the  wine  is 
sour,  the  dessert  is  meager, — it  may  be  so ;  he  does 
not  enter  into  these  details.  His  dinner  is  composed 
of  the  same  number  of  dishes,  and  has  the  same  ap- 
pearance^ that  it  would  have  if  he  were  six  times  as 
rich.  This  is  all  he  knows,  and  with  this  he  is  per- 
fectly contented.  Does  he  fancy  a  bath  to  quicken 
his  flagging  pulse,  and  flatter  himself  into  the  belief 
that  he  is  not  yet  what  should  be  called  aged  ?  Do 
you  suppose  that  he  is  to  abstain  from  this  bath  because 
he  is  poor  ?  No ;  he  is  merely  to  abstain  from  the 
Bains  Chinois,  where  he  would  pay  three  francs,  and 
go  to  the  Bams  rue  Montmartre,  where  he  has  the 
same  portion  of  warm  water  for  t^n  "  sous."  Is  he  of 
an  amorous  propensity  ?  He  sighs  not,  it  is  possible, 
6 


62  THE    CAPITAL. 

in  the  "  foyer"  and  the  "  coulisses."  He  repudiates 
from  his  midnight  dreams  the  voluptuousness  of  the 
opera  dancer,  the  "  agacerie'''  of  the  actress  ;  he  seeks 
not  his  "  bonne  fortune"  at  the  banker's  ball,  or  the 
duchess's  "  conversazione ;"  but  he  inspires  with  his 
flame  the  fair  "  lampiste"  opposite,  or  reposes  more 
languidly  in  the  easy  arms  of  the  fair  fringemaker,^ 
whose  aerial  habitation  is  approximate  to  his  own. 
Has  he  that  incongruity  of  disposition  which  distin- 
guished our  roving  forefathers  ;t  holds  he  in  equal  abomi- 
nation the  quiet  of  his  "  quartier"  and  the  exercise  of  his 
legs  ;  and  is  he  compelled  to  choose  either  dread  al- 
ternative, because  to  him  neither  horse,  nor  groom,  nor 
cabriolet  appertains  ?  Heaven  forbid !  neither  does 
he  call  to  the  cabriolet  or  the  hackney-coach  on  the 
stand,  which  in  the  first  place  would  be  an  exertion,  and 
in  the  next  an  extravagance.  No  ;  he  abides  inertly 
at  his  door,  with  threepence  in  his  hand,  and  the  first 
omnibus  that  passes  transports  him  from  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes  to  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. |  Paris,  we  know,  even 
in  these  times  of  civilization,  is  but  miserably  furnished 
with  one  necessary  convenience.  Do  not  let  our 
poverty-stricken  Petronius  complain !  The  magnifi- 
cent "  Vespasienne"^  anticipates  his  wants,  and  sup- 
plies the  deficiency  which  the  architect  has  left  in  his 
humble  dwelling.  What  is  denied  to  him  ?  Is  there 
a  passion  he  cannot  indulge  ? — even  that  passion  of  the 
rich  man,  the  strongest  perchance  that  the  rich  man 
possesses — the  passion  which  filled  the  pension-list 
of  Louis  XVI.,  and  has  crippled  the  pride  of  our 
nobility  ?  Is  he  deprived  of  its  indulgence  ?  can 
he  not  ruin  himself  if  he  pleases, — can  he  not 
throw  his  fortune  avariciously  away  with  piles  of  ac- 
cumulated gold  before  his  eyes  1  Here  the  state  pro- 
vides for  his  desires,  and  the  gambling-house  and  the 

*  A  class  very  numerously  circulated  throughout  the  topmost  re- 
gions of  Paris. 

t  Mira  diversitate  naturae  cum  idem  homines  sic  ament  inertiam  et 
oderint  quietem. —  Tac. 

%  That  is,  from  one  extremity  of  Paris  to  the  other. 

^  Des  commodit^s  ambulantes !  .  .  .  . 


NOW    AND    FORMERLY.        _  63 

loTtery-ticket  are  accommodated  to  the  ambitious 
prodigality  of  his  miserable  purse.  1  said  that  few  in 
Paris  are  rich,  few  poor.  No  workman  employed  gains 
upon  an  average  less  than  about  eight  hundred  francs 
per  annum.  Hardly  any  workman,  willing  to  work,  is 
without  employment ;  and  the  average  income  of  each 
Parisian,  taking  one  with  the  other,  has  been  con- 
sidered one  thousand  francs.  On  this  fact  reposes  the 
equality  which  strikes  us,  and  the  reign  of  that  middle 
class,  whose  dominion  and  whose  aspect  I  have  de- 
scribed. This  income  of  one  thousand  francs  Mr. 
Millot  has  divided,  and  according  to  his  calculation 
the  washerwoman  costs  the  Parisian  more  than  the 
schoolmaster  ;  the  New-year's  gift  more  than  the  ac- 
coucheur ;  the  theatre  twice  as  much  as  the  nurse  ; 
the  librarian  and  bookseller  half  as  much  as  the 
theatre ;  the  bath  the  same  as  the  bookseller  and 
librarian  ;  and  the  money  spent  in  luxury  and  amuse- 
ments considerably  more  than  that  which  is  expended 
in  the  purchase  of  fuel,  the  dearest  article  of  Parisian 
existence.  Nor  let  it  be  thought  that  Parisian  gayety 
IS  owing  entirely  to  a  Parisian  climate.  They  who 
are  now  watching  the  weather-glass  in  our  land  of  fogs 
may  like  to  know  that  the  Parisians  themselves  have, 
in  the  way  of  weather,  something  to  complain  of. 

Paris  has  in  the  year  (on  an  average  of  twenty  years) 
but  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  days  tolerably  fine.* 
But  what  may  not  be  said  of  these  one  hundred  and 
twenty-six  days  !  They  contain  the  history  of  France. 
The  sun  shines  ;  and  behold  that  important  personage 
who  has  so  frequently  decided  the  destiny  of  Paris ! 
See  him  in  his  black  and  besmeared  "blouse,"  his 
paper  cap,  and  his  green  apron.  There  he  is  on  the 
quais,  on  the  Boulevards,  in  the  Palais  Royal ;  wher- 
ever Paris    is   more  essentially  Paris,  there   he    is, 

*  234  days  of  cold  damp  wind. 

142  of  rain. 

^  180  of  fog. 

148  obscure  (converts). 

181  cloudy. 

58  of  frost. 

12  of  snow. 


r»l  THE    CAPITAL. 

laughing,  running,  shouting,  idling,  eating.  There  he 
is,  at  the  fete,  at  the  funeral,  at  the  bridal,  at  the 
burial,  above  all,  at  the  Revolution.  Hark,  as  he  cries 
"  Vive  la  France  !  vive  la  liberie  /"  And  he  rushes 
on  the  bayonet,  he  jumps  upon  the  cannon,  he  laughs 
at  death,  he  fears  nothing — but  a  shower  of  rain,  and 
was  ever  found  invincible  until  Marshal  Lobau  appeared 
against  him — with  a  water-engine.  Such  is  the 
"  gamin"  of  Paris,  who,  in  common  with  the  gods, 
enjoys  the  privilege  of  perpetual  youth.  Young  at 
the  "  League,"  young  at  the  "  Fronde,"  young  in  1789, 
young  in  1830  ;  always  young  and  always  first  when 
there  is  frolic  or  adventure ;  for  the  character  of  the 
Parisian  is  the  character  of  youth ;  gay,  careless, 
brave  at  all  ages,  he  is  more  than  ever  gay,  and  care- 
less, and  brave  when  he  is  young.*  Such  is  the 
"  gamin"  of  Paris ;  and  in  spite  of  his  follies  and  his 
fickleness,  there  is  something  in  the  rags  darkened  by 
gunpowder,  in  the  garment  torn  by  the  sword,  ana 
pierced  by  the  ball,  that  a  foreigner  respects.  But 
who  is  that  young  man,  fantastically  attired,  a  buffoon 
at  the  carnival,  a  jocky  at  the  race-course — the  be- 
loved of  prostitutes  and  parasites,  gorged  with  the 
gluttony  of  pleasure,  besmeared  with  the  dirt  of 
brothels  and  debauch  ?  Who  is  that  modern  Polemon 
to  whom  philosophy  would  address  herself  in  vain? 
Who  is  that  "  bourgeois  Bassompierre"  that  '■^rentier 
Richelieu"  who  imitates  the  vices  without  having  the 
wit,  the  arrogance  without  having  the  nobility,  of  a 
by-gone  age  ;  who  might  be  the  "  roue"  of  the  regent 
but  for  his  dulness — the  courtier  of  Louis  XV.  but  for 
his  vulgarity — who  thinks  to  disguise  the  stupidity  of 
his  ideas  under  the  coarseness  of  his  language,  and  to 
illustrate  the  sordidness  of  his  birth  by  the  glare  of  his 
extravagances  ?t 

*  It  is  thus  that  the  boy,  taking  with  superior  energy  the  uni- 
versal direction,  never  fails  to  be  at  the  head  of  every  Parisian 
movement. 

+  Such  is  the  type  of  one  of  that  clique  of  young  men  vulgarly 
called  "  lions,"  whose  Uves  are  spent  on  the  Boulevards,  in  the  Bois 
da  Boulogne,  at  the  theatre,  the  gambling-house,  and  the  brothel. 


NOW    AND    FORMERLY  65 

At  least  there  was  talent  and  intelligence  among  the 
*'  cUgans''  of  Versailles  ;  and  the  force  and  the  charac- 
ter which  they  wanted  at  the  court  they  found  on  the 
scaffold. 

But  let  us  turn  from  those  windows  where  you  see 
light,  and  music,  and  champaign,  and  tumult,  to  yon 
dim  and  learned  square,  overshadowed  by  the  Sor- 
bonne  !  There,  opposite  the  miserable  building  where 
Rousseau  dreamt  of  Heloise  in  the  arms  of  his 
"  grisette"  (Therese),  there  is  a  small  but  clean  and 
neat  "  restaurant."  The  name  over  the  door  is  Fie- 
kotcau — name  sacred  to  the  early  dinners  of  the  wise 
and  eloquent  of  France.  Enter  between  three  and 
four  o'clock,  and  take  your  seat  at  one  of  the  small 
tables,  the  greater  number  of  which  are  already  occu- 
pied. To  your  right  there  is  a  pale  young  man :  his 
long  fair  hair,  falling  loosely  over  his  face,  gives  an 
additional  wildness  to  the  eye,  which  has  caught  a 
mysterious  light  from  the  midnight  vigil :  his  clothes 
are  clean  and  threadbare  ;  his  coat  too  short  at  the 
wrists ;  his  trousers  too  short  at  the  legs ;  his  cravat 
of  a  rusty  black,  and  vaguely  confining  two  immense 
shirt  collars,  leaves  his  thin  and  angular  neck  almost 
entirely  exposed.  To  your  left  is  the  native  of  the 
south,  pale  and  swarthy ;  his  long  black  locks,  parted 
from  his  forehead,  descend  upon  his  shoulders  ;  his  lip 
is  fringed  with  a  slight  "  moustache,"  and  the  sem- 
blance of  a  beard  gives  to  his  meditative  countenance 
an  antique  and  apostolic  cast.  Ranged  round  the  room, 
with  their  meager  portions  of  meat  and  bread,  their  pale 
decanter  of  water  before  them,  sit  the  students,  whom 
a  youth  of  poverty  and  privation  is  preparing  for  a  life 
of  energy  or  science.     With  them  is  the  future* — 

Their  conversation  is  an  account  of  their  disgusting  orgies;  their 
vulgarity,  their  bad  taste,  their  ostentatious  and  Ucentious  manners 
have  not  even  the  excuse  of  fasliion,  and  their  birth  is  usually  as  low 
as  their  morality. 

*  I  have  sketched,  as  the  portraits  most  characteristic  of  the  place, 

two  young  men  belonging  to  that  class  called  "  la  ieune  France." 

The  picture  vv^ould  not  be  faithful  if  universally  apphea.    Neither  are 

all  students  so  serious  and  so  learned  as  I  presume  my  students  to  be 

6* 


6(5  THE    CAPITAL. 

but  where  is  the  past  ?  Come  with  me,  reader :  it  is 
our  last  pilgrimage :  come  with  me  to  that  spot  where, 
unhallowed  as  the  flame  that  gleams  about  corruption, 

Many  who  go  to  the  "  Ecole  de  Droit"  merely  iulfil  a  certain  form, 
and  visit  their  college  as  we  do  our  university,  without  much  intention 
of  benefiting  by  the  instructions  they  receive  there.  These  are  chiefly 
the  young  men  of  wealthy  families.  Their  allowance,  from  four  hun- 
dred to  eight  hundred  francs  a  month,  enables  them  to  lead  an  idle 
and  joyous  kind  of  hfe.  There  is  a  "  cafe"  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
de  rOdeon,  famous  for  the  pretty  lady  at  the  counter,  where  they 
usually  breakfast,  and  occupy  two  or  three  hours  in  the  morning  in 
eating,  reading  the  newspapers,  and  making  love.  In  the  evening 
they  cross  the  water,  dine  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and  frequently  treat 
themselves  to  the  theatre.  The  vacant  time  not  thus  disposed  of  is 
occupied  in  smokmg,  talking  (still  a  favourite  amusement  of  the 
French),  and  reading  the  light  works  of  the  day,  which  fill  the  innu- 
merable "salons  literaires,"  or  circulating  libraries,  in  that  part  of  Paris 
where  the  schools  are  situated.  This  indeed  is  a  circumstance  worth 
remarking ;  no  young  Frenchman  is  ever  completely  idle,  completely 
ilhterate,  and  completely  uninformed.  In  our  universities,  the  great 
mass  of  those  who  are  called  "  gay  men,"  in  contradistinction  to  "  read- 
ing men,"  the  great  mass  of  these  never  open  a  book,  never  take  up  a 
newspaper,  never  read  three  hues  even  of  Byron  or  Walter  Scott,  or 
the  most  popular  living  authors  of  the  day :  they  hunt,  they  shoot,  and 
drive  ;  or  if  they  cannot  afford  the  reahty  of  these  amusements,  they 
gratify  themselves  with  the  shadow,  and  are  to  be  seen  smoking  in  a 
shooting-jacket,  or  lounging  in  the  hvery  stables,  or  leaning  out  of  the 
windows  and  flourishing  a  tandem-whip.  The  theatre,  which  would 
have  afforded  this  set  of  scholars  some  resource  and  some  education, 
is  peremptorily  forbidden,  though  it  would  be  easy,  by  proper  regula- 
tions, to  obtain  in  it  a  means  for  elevating  the  taste,  and  giving  a 
literary  turn  to  the  minds  of  many  who  are  otherwise  inaccessible  to 
instruction  or  improvement.  In  Paris  the  most  idle  of  these  gay  men 
I  have  been  describing  have  a  certain  elegance  of  taste  and  love  of 
letters.  They  read,  they  admire,  they  frequently  worship  the  popular 
genius  of  the  time,  and  youth  is  not  passed  without  producing  some 
of  those  elevating  and  poetic  emotions  which  ennoble  the  after- 
passages  of  hfe.  But  to  few  of  the  students  is  Uterature  merely  an 
amusement,  few  are  the  idle  and  jovial  possessors  of  three  or  four 
hundred  francs  a  month.  The  medical  students,  more  particularly 
those  born  of  poor  parents,  and  struggling  expressly  for  a  profession, 
are  frequently  in  a  state  of  almost  absolute  destitution,  and  forty,  fifty, 
and  sixty  francs  a  month  is  the  allowance  of  many  of  these  young 
men,  who  have  lodging,  food,  and  fire,  and  clothing  to  procure  as 
they  can  out  of  this  pittance ;  bad  living,  unhealthy  air,  and  hard 
study  produce  a  frightful  proportion  of  deaths  among  these  unhappy 
youths.  The  only  comfort  and  consolation  which  their  misery 
receives  is  at  the  hands  of  the  "  grisette."  This  friend,  an  honest 
though  perhaps  too  indulgent  personage,  who  has  no  parallel  in  our 
society,  is  the  student's  beneficent  genius.  Between  the  "grisette" 
and  the  student  there  exists  a  species  of  fraternity ;  they  lodge  fre- 
quently in  the  same  house.  If  the  student  be  ill,  the  grisette  attends 
him  J  if  the  student's  linen  be  out  of  repair,  which  happens  frequently 


NOW   AND    FORMERLY.  67 

an  unnatural  gayety  lives  among  the  dead ! — come  with 
me  to  those  tombs,  fantastically  arranged,  where  a 
frivolous  affection  miserably  displays  itself,  in  hanging 
an  artificial  garland,  bought  at  the  gate  for  two  "  sous," 
upon  the  tomb  of  the  lover  who  was  adored !  There 
lie  Abelard  and  Heloise — the  monk  and  his  mistress : 
how  many  thoughts,  customs,  doctrines,  chances, 
changes,  revolutions,  in  that  sepulchre !  .  .  .  There  is 
Massena,  general  of  the  empire — Foy,  statesman  of  the 
Restoration  ;  for  yonder  cemetery,  opened  only  twenty 
years  ago,  already  contains  two  dynasties.  But  pass 
through  the  crowd  of  pyramids,  obelisks,  mounds, 
columns,  that  surround  you  on  either  side ;  turn  from 
the  tombs  that  are  yet  fresh,  and  look  down  from 
yonder  elevation  on  the  monuments  that  mingle  ages  ! 
— what  a  mass  of  history  is  thei  o  !  Behold  the  ruins 
of  that  palace,  built  for  the  modern  King  of  Rome  ! — 
behold'  the  church  of  Saint  Louis,  the  statue  of  Bona- 
parte ! — look  for  the  site  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter ! — 
for  the  house  of  Ninon  de  I'Enclos  ! — :for  the  apartment 
of  Danton — the  palace  of  Richelieu !  It  is  time  that 
gives  a  magnificence  to  vastness :  it  is  memory  that 
gives  a  venerability  to  age. 


the  "  grisette"  mends  it  for  him.  The  student,  in  his  turn,  protects 
the  "  grisette,"  gives  her  his  arm  on  a  Sunday  in  the  Luxembourg, 
or  pays  the  necessary  penny,  and  conducts  her  across  the  bridge. 
Equally  poor,  equally  in  need  of  kindness  and  protection,  brought 
together  by  their  mutual  wants,  they  form  naturally  and  immediately 
a  new  link  in  society. 

A.11  this  part  of  Paris,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Luxembourg,  is 
tinged  by  the  character  of  its  youthful  inliabitants.  They  feel  this ; 
they  feel  they  are  in  their  own  domain ;  they  walk  with  their  heads 
*iigh,  and  their  caps  or  hats  cocked  on  one  side.  The  poor  and  more 
studious  carry  a  book  under  their  arm,  the  richer  and  more  adventur- 
ous brandish  a  stick. 

In  the  same  quarter  as  the  students,  and  minghng  with  them,  live  a 
great  number  of  the  young  literary  men  of  France ;  of  the  journalists, 
of  the  novelists,  of  the  dramatists,  melodramatists,  writers  of  tales, 
reviewers,  &c.  &.c. ;  less  seriously  occupied  than  the  poorer  students, 
not  so  idle  as  the  wealthier  ones,  they  form  an  intermediate  link  be- 
tween the  two,  and  tend  doubtless  to  inspire  both  with  that  love  of 
polite  learning,  that  passion  for  lighter  Uterature,  with  which  all  the 
young  part  of  France  is  imbued. 


68  THE    CAPITAL. 

Let  your  imagination  darken  that  river  by  the 
overshadowing  gloom  of  the  wood  sacred  to  the  weird 
mysteries  of  druidical  superstition ! — lead  through  the 
narrow  streets  of  yonder  isle  the  gay  procession  of 
Bacchus  and  of  Ceres  ! — people  the  city  that  I  see  with 
the  flitting  and  intermingling  figures  of  cowled  monks 
and  steel-armed  warriors ! — paint  the  tumults  of  the 
League — the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew! — paint 
Charles,  with  the  fatal  arquebuse  in  his  hand,  at  yonder 
window^  and  the  Seine  red  and  tumid  with  Protestant 
blond! — behold  the  Parliament,  stiff  and  sombre, 
marching  on  foot  to  the  Palais  Cardinal,  in  deliverance 
of  Broussel ;  and  the  town,  distracted  with  the  fetes, 
and  the  duels,  and  the  ambition,  and  the  quarrels,  of 
the  gay  and  noble  cavaliers  of  that  courtly  and  gallant 
time  ! — And  now  see  the  stalls  of  the  Rue  Quincam- 
poix,  miserable  exhibition  of  the  degraded  chivalry  of 
France  !  and  lo  !  Mirabeau  in  the  tribune  ! — Lafayette, 
on  his  white  horse,  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  ! — Napoleon 
returning  from  Egypt,  and  walking  to  the  Institut ! — the 
Grande  Armee,  drawn  up  on  the  Place  du  Caroussel ! — 
the  Cossacks  encamped  in  the  Champs  Elysees  ! — the 
Garde  Roy  ale  flying  from  the  Louvre  ! — and  the  Garde 
Nationale  reviewing  on  the  Boulevards !  .  .  .  . 


THE  CHARACTERISTICS. 


'•  La  nature  montre  partout  la  lutte  de  I'ombre  et  de  la  lumi&re.* 
— ^V.  Huao,  LitUrature  et  Philosophic  milees. 

"The  truth  is,  they  be  not  the  highest  instances  that  give  the 
securest  information ;  as  may  be  well  expressed  in  the  tale  so  com- 
mon of  the  philosopher,  that  while  he  gazed  upwards  to  the  stars  he 
fell  into  the  water ;  for  if  he  had  looked  down  he  might  have  seen 
the  stars  in  the  water,  but  looking  aloft  he  could  not  see  the  water 
in  the  stars.  So  it  cometh  often  to  pass,  that  mean  and  small  things 
discover  great,  better  than  great  can  discover  the  small." — Bacon' a 
Advancement. 


CHARACTERISTICS 


POLITENESS. 

Beggar  like  the  courtier  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV. — Arrival  at  Calais 
— Innkeeper  at  Rouen — Comparison  between  hotel  at  Paris  and 
hotel  in  London — Manners  of  servants  and  tradespeople  in  the 
two  countries — Our  idea  of  civility — T^.-  "  .nners,  checkered  in 
England  by  softness  and  insolence,  are  ot  sufficiently  courteous 
and  gentle  in  France — You  see  no  lonj^  ^.  in  France  that  noble  air, 
that  "  §reat  manner,"  as  it  was  called,  which  you  found  formerly — 
Grace  m  the  creed  of  P^re  Enfantin — Expression  of  old  Segur. 

We  have  arrived  in  France.  We  have  seen  Paris 
— the  epitome  of  France — now  let  us  take  within  our 
view  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  French  people  ! 
Many  are  those  landmarks  of  manners  in  every  nation 
which  laws  and  circumstances  will  alter  and  efface ; 
and  many  are  those  which  laws  and  circumstances 
will  alter,  will  modify,  but  which  they  cannot  efface. 
I  proceed  to  consider  both.  What,  reader,  should  I 
say  of  the  ancient  reputation  which  France  enjoyed  for 
politeness?  .... 

"  Je  me  recommande  k  vous,"  was  said  to  me  the 
other  day  by  an  old  gentleman,  dressed  in  very  tattered 
garments,  who  was  thus  soliciting  a  "  sou."  The  old 
man  was  a  picture  :  his  long  gray  hairs  fell  gracefully 
over  his  shoulders.  Tall — he  was  so  bent  forward  as 
to  take  with  a  becoming  air  the  position  in  which  he 
had  placed  himself.  One  hand  was  pressed  to  his 
heart,  the  other  held  his  hat.  His  voice,  soft  and 
plaintive,  did  not  want  a  certain  dignity.  In  that  very 
attitude,  and  in  that  very  voice,  a  nobleman  of  the  an- 


72  CHARACTERISTICS. 

cieiit  "  regime"  might  have  soUcited  a  pension  from 
the  Due  de  Choiseul  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV.  I  con- 
fess that  I  was  the  more  struck  by  the  manner  of  the 
venerable  suppliant  from  the  contrast  which  it  formed 
with  the  demeanour  of  his  countrymen  in  general :  foi 
it  is  rare,  nowadays,  I  acknowledge,  to  meet  with  a 
Frenchman  with  the  air  which  Lawrence  Sterne  was 
so  enchanted  with  during  the  first  month,  and  so  wea- 
ried with  at  the  expiration  of  the  first  year,  which  he 
spent  in  France.  That  look  and  gesture  of  the  "  petit 
marquis,"  that  sort  of  studied  elegance,  which,  at  first 
affected  by  the  court,  became  at  last  natural  to  the  na- 
tion, exist  no  longer  except  among  two  or  three  "  grand 
seigneurs"  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  and  as  many 
beggars  usually  to  be  found  on  the  Boulevards.  To 
ask  with  grace,  to  beg  with  as  little  self-humility  as 
possible ;  here  perchance  is  the  fundamental  idea 
which  led,  in  the  two  extremes  of  society,  to  the  same 
results :  but  things  vicious  in  their  origin  are  some- 
times agreeable  in  their  practice. 

"  Hail  ye  small  sweet  courtesies  of  life,  far  smoother 
do  ye  make  the  road  of  it — like  grace  and  beauty, 
which  beget  inclinations  at  first  sight,  'tis  ye  who  open 
the  door  and  let  the  stranger  in."  I  had  the  Senti- 
mental Journey  in  my  hand — it  was  open  just  at  this 
passage  when  I  landed  not  very  long  ago  on  the  quay 
of  that  town  which  Horace  Walpole  tells  us  caused 
him  more  astonishment  than  any  other  he  had  met 
with  in  his  travels.  I  mean  Calais.  "Hail  ye  small 
sweet  courtesies  of  life,"  was  I  still  muttering  to  my- 
self, as  gently  pushing  by  a  spruce  little  man,  who  had 
already  scratched  my  nose,  and  nearly  poked  out  my 

eyes,  with  cards  of  "  Hotel ."     I  attempted  to 

pass  on  towards  the  inn  of  Mons.  Dessin.  "  Nom  de 
D  .  .  !"  said  the  commissionaire,  as  I  touched  his 
elbow,  "  nom  de  D  .  .  ,  monsieur,  je  suis  Frangais  ! 
il  ne  faut  pas  me  pousser,  moi  .  .  .  je  stiis  Frangais  /" 
and  this  he  said,  contracting  his  brow,  and  touching  a 
moustache  that  only  wanted  years  and  black  wax  to 
make  it  truly  formidable.     I  thought  that  he  was  going 


POLITENESS.  73 

to  offer  me  his  own  card  instead  of  Mr.  Meurice's. 
This  indeed  would  have  been  little  more  than  what 
happened  to  a  friend  of  mine  not  long  ago.  He  was 
going  last  year  from  Dieppe  to  Paris.  He  slept  at 
Rouen  ;  and  on  quitting  the  house  the  following  morn- 
ing found  fault  with  some  articles  in  the  bill  presented 
to  him.  "  Surely  there  is  some  mistake  here,"  said 
he,  pointing  to  the  account.*  "  Mistake,  sir,"  said  the 
"  aubergiste"  adjusting  his  shoulders  with  the  import- 
ant air  of  a  man  who  was  going  to  burthen  them  with 
a  quarrel — "  mistake,  sir,  what  do  you  mean? — a  mis- 
take— do  you  think  I  charge  a  '  sou'  more  than  is 
just  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  ?  .  .  .  /e  suis  officicr, 
monsieur^  afficier  Franqais^  et  finsiste  pour  que  vous  mn 
rendiez  raison  /"  Now,  it  is  undoubtedly  v'ery  unplea- 
sant to  an  Englishman,  who  has  the  same  idea  of  a 
duel  that  a  certain  French  "  marquise"  had  of  a  lover, 
when  on  her  death-bed  she  said  to  her  granddaughter, 
*'  Je  ne  vous  dis  pas,  ma  chere,  de  ne  point  avoir 
d'amans,  je  me  rappelle  ma  jeunesse.  II  faut  seule- 
ment  n'en  prendre  jamais  qui  seront  au  dessous  de 
votre  etat."  It  is  doubtless  very  unpleasant  to  an  Eng- 
lishman, who  cares  much  less  about  lighting  than  about 
the  person  he  fights  with,  to  have  his  host  present  him 
a  bill  in  one  hand,  and  a  pistol  in  the  other.  In  one 
of  the  islands  which  we  ought  to  discover,  whenever 
the  king  sneezes  all  his  courtiers  are  expected  to 
sneeze  also :  the  country  of  course  imitates  the  court, 
and  the  empire  is  at  once  affected  with  a  general  cold. 
Sneezing  here  then  becomes  an  art,  and  an  accom- 
plishment. One  person  prizes  himself  on  sneezing 
more  gracefully  than  another,  and,  by  a  matter  of  gene- 
ral consent,  all  nations  who  have  not  an  harmonious 
manner  of  vibrating  their  nostrils  are  justly  condemned 
as  savages  and  barbarians.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  people  of  this  island  are  right ;  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  we  are  right  in  considering  every  people 
with  different  usages  from  ourselves  of  very  uncivilized 
and  uncomfortable  behaviour.  We  then  decidedly  are 
Vol.  I.— D  7 


74  CHARACTERISTICS. 

the  people  who  ought  justly  to  be  deemed  the  most 
polite. 

For  instance — you  arrive  at  Paris  :  how  striking  the 
difference  between  the  reception  you  receive  at  your 
hotel,  and  that  you  "vyould  find  in  London !  In  London, 
arrive  in  your  carriage  (that,  I  grant,  is  necessary) — 
the  landlord  meets  you  at  the  door,  surrounded  by  his 
anxious  attendants :  he  bows  profoundly  when  you 
alight — calls  loudly  for  every  thing  you  want,  and 
seems  shocked  at  the  idea  of  your  waiting  an  instant 
for  the  merest  trifle  you  can  possibly  imagine  that  you 
desire.  Now  try  your  Paris  hotel!  you  enter  the 
court-yard — the  proprietor,  if  he  happen  to  be  there, 
receives  you  with  careless  indifference,  and  either 
accompanies  you  saunteringly  himself,  or  orders  some 
one  to  accompany  you,  to  the  apartment  which,  on  first 
seeing  you,  he  determined  you  should  have.  It  is 
useless  to  expect  another.  If  you  find  any  fault  with 
this  apartment — if  you  express  any  wish  that  it  had 
this  little  thing,  that  it  had  not  that — do  not  for  one 
moment  imagine  that  your  host  is  likely  to  say,  with 
an  eager  air,  that  "  he  will  see  what  can  be  done — 
that  he  would  do  a  great  deal  to  please  so  respectable 
a  gentleman."  In  short,  do  not  suppose  him  for  one 
moment  likely  to  pour  forth  any  of  those  little  civili- 
ties with  which  the  lips  of  your  English  innkeeper 
would  overflow.  On  the  contrary,  be  prepared  for  his 
lifting  up  his  eyes,  and  shrugging  up  his  shoulders 
(the  shrug  is  not  the  courtier-like  shrug  of  antique 
days),  and  telling  you  "  that  the  apartment  is  as  you 
see  it,  that  it  is  for  '  monsieur'  to  make  up  his  mind 
whether  he  take  it  or  not."  The  whole  is  the  afl'air 
of  the  guest,  and  remains  a  matter  of  perfect  indiffer- 
ence to  the  host.  Your  landlady,  it  is  true,  is  not  quite 
so  haughty  on  these  occasions.  But  you  are  indebted 
for  her  smile  rather  to  the  coquetry  of  the  beauty  than 
to  the  civility  of  the  hostess  :  she  will  tell  you,  adjust- 
mg  her  headdress  in  the  mirror  standing  upon  the 
chimney-piece  in  the  little  "  salon"  she  recommends — 
*'que  monsieur  s'y  trouvera  fort  bien,  qu'un  milord 


POLITENESS.  75 

Anglais,   qu'un   prince   Russe,   ou   qu'un   colonel  du 

ieme  regiment  de  dragons,  a  occupe  cette  meme 

chambre" — and  that  there  is  just  by  an  excellent  "res- 
taurateur," and  a  "  cabinet  de  lecture" — and  then,  her 
headdress  being  quite  in  order,  the  lady,  expanding 
her  arms  with  a  gentle  smile,  says,  '*  Mais  apres  tout, 
c'est  a  monsieur  de  se  decider."  It  is  this  which 
makes  your  French  gentleman  so  loud  in  praise  of 
English  politeness.  One  was  expatiating  to  me  the 
other  day  on  the  admirable  manners  of  the  English. 
— "  I  went,"  said  he,  "  to  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's, 
*  dans  mon  pauvre  jiacre  ;'  never  shall  I  forget  the  re- 
spect with  which  a  stately  gentleman,  gorgeously  ap- 
parelled, opened  the  creaking  door,  let  down  the  steps, 
and,  courtesy  of  very  courtesies  ! — picked,  actually 
picked,  the  dirty  straws  of  the  ignominious  vehicle 
that  I  descended  from  off  my  shoes  and  stockings." 
This  occurred  to  the  French  gentleman  at  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire's.  But  let  your  English  gentleman 
visit  a  French  "  grand  seigneur !"  He  enters  the  ante- 
chamber from  the  grand  escalier.  The  servants  are 
at  a  game  of  dominoes,  from  which  his  entrance  hardly 
disturbs  them,  and  fortunate  is  he  if  any  one  conduct 
him  with  a  careless  lazy  air  to  the  "  salon."  So,  if  you 
go  to  Boivin's,  or  if  you  go  to  Howel's  and  James's, 
with  what  politeness,  with  what  celerity,  with  what  re- 
spect your  orders  are  received  at  the  great  man's  of 
Waterloo  Place — with  what  an  easy  "  nonchalance" 
you  are  treated  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  !  All  this  is  quite 
true  ;  but  there  are  things  more  shocking  than  all  this. 
I  know  a  gentleman,  who  called  the  other  day  on  a 
French  lady  of  his  acquaintance,  who  was  under  the 
hands  of  her  "  coiffeur."  The  artist  of  the  hair  was 
there,  armed  cap-a-pie,  in  all  the  glories  of  national- 
guardism,  brandishing  his  comb  with  the  grace  and 
the  dexterity  with  which  he  would  have  wielded  a 
sword,  and  recounting,  during  the  operation  of  the 
toilet — now  a  story  of  "  Monsieur  son  Capitaine''' — now 
an  anecdote,  equally  interesting,  of  ''^Monsieur  son 
ColoneV — now  a  tale  of  *'  Monsieur  son  Roi^'^  "  that 
D2 


76  CFIARACTERISTICS 

excellent  man,  on  whom  he  was  going  to  mount  guard 
that  very  evening."  My  unhappy  friend's  face  still 
bore  the  most  awful  aspect  of  dismay  as  he  told  his 
story.  "  By  G — d,  there's  a  country  for  you  !"  said 
he  ;  "  can  property  be  safe  for  a  moment  in  such 
a  country  ?  There  can  be  no  religion,  no  morality 
with  such  manners — I  shall  order  post-horses  imme- 
diately." 

I  did  not  wonder  at  my  friend — at  his  horror  for  so 
fearful  a  familiarity.  What  are  our  parents  always, 
and  no  doubt  wisely,  repeating  to  us  ? — "  You  should 
learn,  my  dear,  to  keep  a  certain  kind  of  persons  at 
their  proper  distance." 

In  no  circumstance  are  we  to  forget  this  important 
lesson.  If  the  clouds  hurled  their  thunders  upon  ouf 
heads,  if  the  world  tumbled  topsy-turvy  about  our 
ears, 

"  Si  fractus  illabatur  orbis," 

it  is  to  find  the  well-bred  Englishman  as  it  would 
have  found  the  just  Roman — and,  above  all  things,  it 
is  not  to  derange  the  imperturbable  disdain  with  which 
he  is  enfeoffed  to  his  inferiors. — Lady  D.  was  going 
to  Scotland :  a  violent  storm  arose.  Her  ladyship 
was  calmly  dressing  her  hair,  when  the  steward 
knocked  at  the  cabin  door.  "  My  lady,"  said  the  man, 
"  I  think  it  right  to  tell  you  there  is  every  chance  of 
our  being  drowned." — "  Do  not  talk  to  me,  you  im- 
pertinent fellow,  about  drowning,"  said  her  aristocrati- 
cal  ladyship,  perfectly  unmoved — "  that's  the  captain's 
business,  and  not  mine." 

Our  great  idea  of  civility  is  that  the  person  who 
is  poor  should  be  exceedingly  civil  to  the  person  who 
is  wealthy  :  and  this  is  the  difference  between  the 
neighbouring  nations.  Your  Frenchman  admits  no 
one  to  be  quite  his  equal — ^your  Englishman  worships 
every  one  richer  than  himself  as  undeniably  his  supe- 
rior. Judge  us  from  our  servants  and  our  shopkeep- 
ers, it  is  true  we  are  the  politest  people  in  the  world. 
The  sen-ants,  who  are  paid  well,  and  the  shopkeep- 


POLITENESS.  77 

ers,  who  sell  high,  scrape,  and  cringe,  and  smile. 
There  is  no  country  where  those  who  have  wealth  are 
treated  so  politely  by  those  to  whom  it  goes ;  but  at 
the  same  time  there  is  no  country  where  those  who 
are  well  off  live  on  such  cold,  and  suspicious,  and  ill- 
natured,  and  uncivil  terms  among  themselves. 

The  rich  man  who  travels  in  France  murmurs  at 
every  inn  and  at  every  shop  ;  not  only  is  he  treated 
no  better  for  being  a  rich  man — he  is  treated  worse  in 
many  places,  from  the  idea  that  because  he  is  rich 
he  is  likely  to  give  himself  airs.  But.  if  the  lower 
classes  are  more  rude  to  the  higher  classes  than  with 
us,  the  higher  classes  in  France  are  far  less  rude  to 
one  another.  The  dandy  who  did  not  look  at  an  old 
acquaintance,  or  who  looked  impertinently  at  a  stranger, 
would  have  his  nose  pulled,  and  his  body  run  through  with 
a  small  sword — or  damaged  by  a  pistol  bullet — before 
the  evening  were  well  over.  Where  every  man  wishes 
to  be  higher  than  he  is,  there  you  find  people  insolent  to 
their  fellows,  and  exacting  obsequiousness  from  their 
inferiors — where  men  will  allow  no  one  to  be  superior 
to  themselves,  there  you  see  them  neither  civil  to 
those  above  them,  nor  impertinent  to  those  beneath 
them,  nor  yet  very  courteous  to  those  in  the  same 
station.  The  manners,  checkered  in  one  country  by 
softness  and  insolence,  are  not  sufficiently  courteous 
and  gentle  in  the  other.  Time  was  in  France  (it  ex- 
isted in  England  to  a  later  date)  when  politeness  was 
thought  to  consist  in  placing  every  one  at  his  ease. 
A  quiet  sense  of  their  own  dignity  rendered  persons 
insensible  to  the  fear  of  its  being  momentarily  forgot- 
ten. Upon  these  days  rested  the  shadow  of  a  by-gone 
chivalry,  which  accounted  courtesy  as  one  of  the  virtues. 
The  civility  of  that  epoch,  as  contrasted  with  the 
civility  of  ours,  was  not  the  civility  of  the  domestic  or 
the  tradesman,  meant  to  pamper  the  pride  of  their  em- 
ployer ;  but  the  civility  of  the  noble  and  the  gentle- 
man, meant  to  elevate  the  modesty  of  those  who  con- 
sidered themselves  in  an  inferior  state.     Corrupted  by 

the  largesses  of  an  expensive  and  intriguing  court, 

7* 


78  CHARACTERISTICS. 

the  *'  grand  seigneur,"  after  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 
became  over-civil  and  servile  to  those  above  him — 
beneath  the  star  of  the  French  minister  beat  the  pres- 
ent heart  of  the  British  mercer :  and  softly  did  the 
great  man  smile  on  those  from  whom  he  had  any  thing 
to  gain.  As  whatever  was  taught  at  Versailles  was 
learned  in  the  Rue  St.  Denis,  when  the  courtier  had  the 
air  of  a  solicitor  every  one  aped  the  air  of  the  court- 
ier ;  and  the  whole  nation,  with  one  hand  expressing  a 
request,  and  the  other  an  obligation,  might  have  been 
taken  in  the  attitude  of  the  graceful  old  beggar,  whose 
accost  made  such  an  impression  upon  me. 

But  a  new  nobility  grew  up  in  rivalry  to  the  elder 
one ;  and  as  the  positions  of  society  became  more 
complicated  and  uncertain,  a  supreme  civility  to  some 
was  seen  side  by  side  with  a  sneering  insolence  to 
others — a  revolution  in  manners  which  imbittered  as 
it  hastened  the  revolution  of  opinions.  Thus  the 
manners  of  the  French  in  the  time  of  Louis  XVL  had 
one  feature  of  similarity  with  ours  at  present.  A 
moneyed  aristocracy  was  then  rising  into  power  in 
France,  as  a  moneyed  aristocracy  is  now  rising  into 
power  in  England.  This  is  the  aristocracy  which 
demands  obsequious  servility — which  is  jealous  and 
fearful  of  being  treated  with  disrespect :  this  is  the 
aristocracy  which  is  haughty,  insolent,  and  suscep- 
tible ;  which  dreams  of  affronts  and  gives  them ;  this 
is  the  aristocracy  which  measures  with  an  uncertain 
eye  the  height  of  an  acquaintance  ;  this  is  the  aristoc- 
racy which  cuts  and  sneers — this  aristocracy,  though 
the  aristocracy  of  the  revolution  of  July,  is  now  too 
powerless  in  France  to  be  more  than  vulgar  in  its  pre- 
tensions. French  manners,  then,  if  they  are  not  gra- 
cious, are  at  all  events  not  insolent ;  while  ours, 
unhappily,  testify  on  one  hand  the  insolence,  while 
they  do  not  on  the  other  represent  the  talent  and  the 
grace,  of  that  society  which  presided  over  the  later 
suppers  of  the  old  "  regime."  We  have  no  Monsieur 
de  Fitz- James,  who  might  be  rolled  in  a  gutter  all  his 
life,  as  was  said  by  a  beautiful  woman  of  his  time, 


POLITENESS  79 

"  without  ever  contracting  a  spot  of  dirt ."  We  have 
no  Monsieur  de  Narbonne,  who  stops  in  the  fiercest 
of  a  duel  to  pick  up  the  ruffled  rose  that  had  slipped 
in  a  careless  moment  from  his  lips,  during  the  grace- 
ful conflict.  You  see  no  longer  in  France  that  noble 
air,  that  "  great  manner^''  as  it  was  called,  by  which 
the  old  nobility  strove  to  keep  up  the  distinction  be- 
tween themselves  and  their  worse-born  associates  to 
the  last,  and  which  of  course  those  associates  most 
assiduously  imitated. 

That  manner  is,  gone ;  the  French,  so  far  "from 
being  a  polite  people  at  the  present  day,  want  that 
easiness  of  behaviour  which  is  the  first  essential  to 
politeness.  Every  man  you  meet  is  occupied  with 
maintaining  his  dignity;  and  talks  to  you  of  his  posi- 
tion. There  is  an  evident  eflfort  and  struggle,  I  will 
not  say  to  appear  better  than  you  are,  but  to  appear 
all  that  you  are^  and  to  allow  no  person  to  think  that 
you  consider  him  better  than  you.  Persons,  no  longer 
ranked  by  classes,  take  each  by  themselves  an  indi- 
vidual place  in  society :  they  are  so  many  atoms,  not 
forming  a  congruous  or  harmonious  whole.  They  are 
too  apt  to  strut  forward  singly,  and  to  say  with  a  great 
deal  of  action,  and  a  great  deal  of  emphasis,  "  I  am— 
nobody.^'  The  French  are  no  longer  a  polite  people  ; 
but  in  the  French  nation,  as  in  every  nation,  there  is 
an  involuntary  and  traditionary  respect  which  hallows 
what  is  gone  by ;  and  among  the  marvels  of  modern 
France  is  a  religion  which  ranks  an  agreeable  smile 
and  a  graceful  bow  as  essential  virtues  of  its  creed. 

Nor  does  the  P^re  Enfantin  stand  alone.  There 
is  something  touching  in  the  language  of  the  old 
*'  seigneur,"  who,  placed  as  it  were  between  two 
epochs,  looking  backwards  and  forwards  to  the  graces 
of  past  times  and  the  virtues  of  new,  thus  expresses 
himself : 

"  Les  progres  de  la  lumiere  et  de  la  liberte  ont  cer- 
tainement  fait  faire  de  grands  pas  k  la  rai^n  humaine ; 
mais  aussi  dans  sa  route,  n'a-telle  rien  perdu  ?  Moi 
qui  ne  suis  pas  un  de  ces  opiniatres  prdneurs  de  ce 


BO  CHARACTERISTICS. 

bon  vieux  terns  qui  n'est  plus,  je  ne  puis  m'empecher 
de  regretter  ce  bon  gout,  cette  grace,  cette  fleur  d'en- 
jouement  et  d'urbanite  qui  chassait  de  la  societe  tout 
ennui  en  permettant  au  bon  sens  de  sourire  et  h  la 
sagesse  de  se  parer.  Aujourd'hui  beaucoup  de  gens 
resemblent  a  un  proprietaire  morose,  qui  ne  songeant 
qu'a  I'utile,  bannirait  de  son  jardin  les  fleurs  et  ne  vou 
drait  y  voir  que  du  ble  des  foins  et  des  fruits." 


GALLANTRY. 

The  small  piece  called  "  Pourquoi" — The  French  are  not  to  expect 
at  the  same  time  in  their  wives  chastity  and  good  temper — What 
is  to  be  said  for  England — In  France  there  is  not  even  a  shocking 
or  humiliating  idea  attached  to  sexual  improprieties— Mademoiselle 
de  I'Enclos's  observation — There  is  nothing  of  passion  in  French 
love — A  poet  irresistible  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine — A  lord  on 
the  Banks  of  the  Thames — The  Italian  women,  the  EngUsh 
women,  the  French  women — A  courtship  in  France  a  series  of  "  bon 
mots" — Fate  of  unmarried  ladies — Marriages  ''de  St.  Jacques." 
— Number  of  illegitimate  births  in  Paris — More  libertinage  in. 
France  than  elsewhere,  and  leads  less,  perhaps,  than  elsewhere,  to 
other  depravity — The  gallantry  and  licentiousness  of  the  French 
not  sprung  from  the  revolution— Saying  of  the  mother  of  the  great 
Conde — The  love  which  you  find  in  France  made  for  society — 
Gallantry  national  in  France — The  French  cherish  the  memory, 
not  only  of  their  great  men,  but  of  their  great  men's  mistresses. 

Tpiere  is  a  small  piece  now  acting  at  one  of  the 
mipor  theatres  called  "  Pourquoi."  It  is  very  popular  ; 
everybody  goes  to  see  it,  and  says,  "  it  is  so  true." 
What  tale  lies  hid  under  this  mysterious  title  1 

There  are  two  married  friends  living  together.  The 
wife  of  one  is  charming,  always  ready  to  obey  and  to 
oblige  ;  her  husband's  will  is  her  law.  Nothing  puts  hei 
out  of  humour.  This  couple  live  on  the  best  of  terms, 
and  the  husband  is  as  happy  as  husband  can  desire  to 
be.  Now  for  the  other  pair !  Here  is  continual 
wrangling  and  dispute.  The  wife  will  have  her  own 
way  in  the  merest  trifles  as  on  the  gravest  matters-— 


GALLANTRY.  81 

Storms  when  contradicted,  still  tosses  her  head  when 
humoured.  In  short,  nothing  can  be  so  disagreeable 
as  this  good  lady  is  to  her  grumbling  but  submissive 
helpmate.  Happiness  and  misery  were  never  to  all 
appearances  brought  more  fairly  face  to  face  than  in 
these  two  domestic  establishments.  "  Why"  is  one 
wife  such  a  pattern  of  good-nature  and  submission  ? 
"  Why"  is  the  other  such  a  detestable  shrew  ?  This 
is  the  pourquoi. 

The  spouse  whom  you  shrink  from  in  such  justifia- 
ble terror  is  as  faithful  as  woman  can  be.  The  spouse 
whom  you  cling  to  as  such  a  pillow  of  comfort,  is  an 
intriguing  hussy. 

Hear,  O  ye  French  husbands  !  you  must  not  ex- 
pect your  wives  to  have  at  the  same  time  chastity  and 
good  temper :  the  qualities  are  incompatible.  Your 
eyes  must  be  picked  out,  or  horns  on  your  heads  must 
grow.  This  is  the  farce  which  is  "  so  popular."  This 
is  the  picture  of  manners  which  people  call  "  so  true." 
Miserable  man,  if  the  lips  you  press  to  yours  are  chaste 
to  such  endearments !  Miserable  man,  if  the  wife  of 
your  bosom  should  be  so  singular  as  to  be  faithful ! 
There  is  this  to  be  said  for  England — if  the  poor-houses 
of  the  country  swarm  with  children  without  a  father — 
if  the  streets  of  the  metropolis  are  almost  turbulently 
infested  with  ladies  of  a  most  improper  character — if 
Grosvenor-square  and  St.  James's-square,  and  Hill- 
street,  and  Charles-street  are  witnesses  to  some  mys- 
terious and  unconjugal  indecorums, — the  crime  of  un- 
chastity  is  still  spoken  of  and  considered  as  deadly 
and  damnatory  as  any  to  be  found  on  the  Newgate 
calendar.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  a  poor  woman 
charged,  I  think,  a  chimney-sweep  with  grossly  ill- 
treating,  i.  e.  beating  her.  What  says  the  chimney- 
sweep t  Does  he  refute  the  charge  1  No :  but  he 
asks  the  plaintiff  at  once  whether  she  is  not  guilty  of 
a  criminal  intercourse  with  a  certain  cobbler  of  her  ac- 
quaintance ;  and  when  this  unhappy  fact  is  established 
— turning  round  triumphantly  to  the  magistrate — 
D3 


82  CHARACTERISTICS. 

"Now,  your  honour,  vot  does  your  honour  say  after 
that  ?"  says  the  chimney-sweeper. 

In  France  there  is  not  even  a  shocking  or  humilia- 
ting idea  attached  to  these  sexual  improprieties.  The 
woman,  says  La  Bruyere,  who  has  only  one  lover  says 
she  is  not  a  coquette ;  the  woman  who  has  more  than 
one  lover  says  she  is  only  a  coquette ;  to  have  a  lover 
is  the  natural  and  simple  thing — nor  is  it  necessary 
that  you  should  have  a  violent  passion  to  excuse  the 
frailty.  Mademoiselle  de  I'Enclos,  whose  opinions 
have  descended  in  all  their  force  and  simplicity  to  the 
present  generation,  says,  "  What  attaches  you  to  your 
lover  is  not  always  love;  a  conformity  of  ideas,  of 
tastes,  the  habit  of  seeing  him,  the  desire  to  escape 
yourself ;  la  necessity  d* avoir  quelque  galanterie^'' — "  Gal- 
lantry"— that  is  the  word  which,  in  spite  of  all  our 
social  refinement,  we  have  hardly  yet  a  right  under- 
standing of.  I  remember  in  some  novel  of  Crebillon 
a  scene  in  which  the  lady  gently  repulses  the  addresses 
of  a  gentleman  who  is  laying  what  we  should  call  violent 
hands  on  her,  by  the  remark  that  she  did  not  love  him ; 
"  Nay,"  but  says  the  gentleman,  nothing  abashed,  "  if 
you  only  give  what  I  ask  to  love,  what  do  you  keep 
for  friendship  ?"  Gallantry  is  a  kind  of  light,  and  af- 
fectionate, and  unplatonic  friendship,  which  just  suits 
the  amiable  and  frivolous  nature  of  the  French. 

There  is  nothing  of  passion  in  it — never  expect  a 
folly !  Not  one  lady  in  a  hundred  would  quit  the  hus- 
band she  deceives  for  the  lover  whom  (soi-disant)  she 
adores.     As  to  the  gentlemen — I  remember  a  case  the 

other  day  :  Madame    de   ,   hating   her   husban(J 

rather  more  than  it  is  usual  to  hate  a  husband,  or  liking 
her  lover  rather  better  than  it  is  usual  to  like  a  lover, 
proposed  an  elopement.  The  lover,  when  able  to  re- 
cover from  the  astonishment  into  which  he  was  thrown 
by  so  startling  and  singular  a  proposition ;  having 
moreover  satisfied  himself  that  his  mistress  was  really 
in  earnest,  put  on  a  more  serious  aspect  than  usual, 
"Your  husband  is,  as  you  know,  ma  chere,"  said  he, 
'*  my  best  friend.     I  will  live  with  you  and  love  you  as 


GALLANTllY.  S3 

long  as  you  like,  under  his  roof;  that  is  no  breach  of 

friendship  :  but  I  cannot  do  M.  de so  cruel  and 

unfriendly  a  thing  as  to  run  away  with  you."*  In 
Italy  love  is  fierce,  passionate,  impregnated  wit'i  the 
sun :  in  England,  as  in  Germany,  love  is  sentimental, 
ideal.  It  is  not  the  offspring  of  the  heart,  but  of  the 
imagination.  A  poet  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  is 
irresistible — a  lord  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  is  the 
same.  The  lord  indeed  is  a  kind  of  poet — a  hallowed 
and  mystic  being  to  a  people  who  are  always  dreaming 
of  lords,  and  scheming  to  be  ladies.  The  world  of 
fancy  to  British  dames  and  damsels  is  the  world  of 
fashion  :  Almack's  and  Devonshire  House  are  the 
"  fata  morgana"  of  the  proudest  and  the  highest — but 
every  village  has  "  its  set,"  round  which  is  drawn  a 
magic  circle  ;  and  dear  and  seductive  are  the  secret 
and  unde finable,  and  frequently  unattainable,  charms 
of  those  within  the  circle  to  those  without  it.  You 
never  heard  in  England  of  a  clergyman's  daughter  se- 
duced by  a  baker's  son — of  a  baker's  daughter  seduced 
by  a  chimney-sweeper's  boy. 

The  gay  attorney  seduces  the  baker's  daughter ;  the 
clergyman's  only  child  runs  away  with  the  Honourable 

Augustus ,  who  is  heir,  or  younger  brother  to  the 

heir,  of  the  great  house  where  the  races  are  given  to 
the  neighbourhood.  When  the  Italian  woman  takes  a 
lover,  she  indulges  a  desperate  passion ;  when  the 
English  woman  takes  a  lover,  it  is  frequently  to  gratify 
a  restless  longing  after  rank ;  when  a  French  woman 
takes  a  lover,  it  is  most  commonly  to  get  an  agreeable 
and  interesting  companion.  As  Italy  is  the  land  of 
turbulent  emotion — as  England  is  the  land  of  aristo- 
cratic pretension — so  France  is,  ^'•par  excellences^''  the 
land  of  conversation,  and  an  assiduous  courtship  is 
very  frequently  a  series  of  bon-mots.  It  is  very  pos- 
sibly the  kind  of  gentle  elegance  which  pervades  these 
relations  that  makes  the  French  so  peculiarly  indul- 
gent to  them  ;  you  hear  of  none  of  the  fatal  effects  of 

*  This  is  a  fact. 


84  CHARACTERISTICS. 

jealous  indignation,  of  the  husband  or  the  lover  pon- 
iarded in  the  dim-lit  street  ;*  you  hear  of  no  damages 
and  no  elopements  ;  the  honour  of  the  marriage-bed  is 
never  brought  before  your  eyes  in  the  clear  and  com- 
prehensive and  unmistakable  shape  of  20,000/.  You 
see  a  very  well  dressed  gentleman  particularly  civil 
and  attentive  to  a  very  well  dressed  lady.  If  you  call 
of  a  morning,  you  find  him  sitting  by  her  work-table  : 
if  she  stay  at  home  of  an  evening  for  the  "  migraine," 
you  find  him  seated  by  her  sofa ;  if  you  meet  her  in 
the  world,  you  find  him  talking  with  her  husband ;  a 
stranger  or  a  provincial  says,  "  Pray,  what  relation  is 

Monsieur to  Madame ?"    He  is  told  quietly, 

"  Monsieur is  Madame 's  lover."  This  gal- 
lantry, which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  great 
sociability,  a  great  love  of  company  and  conversation, 
pervades  every  class  of  persons,  and  produces  conse- 
quences, no  doubt,  which  a  love  of  conversation  can 
hardly  justify. 

In  a  country  where  fortunes  are  small,  marriages, 
though  far  more  frequent  than  with  us,  have  still  their 
limits,  and  only  take  place  between  persons  who  can 
together  make  up  a  sufficient  income.  A  vast  variety 
of  single  ladies,  therefore,  without  fortune,  still  remain, 
who  are  usually  guilty  of  the  indiscretion  of  a  lover, 
even  though  they  have  no  husband  to  deceive.  Many 
of  these  cannot  be  called  s — mp — s  in  our  sense  of 
things,  and  are  honest  women  in  their  own.  They 
take  unto  themselves  an  affection,  to  which  they  remain 
tolerably  faithful  as  long  as  it  is  understood  that  the 
liaison  continues.  The  quiet  young  banker,  the  quiet 
young  stockbroker,  the  quiet  young  lawyer,  live  until 
they  are  rich  enough  to  marry  in  some  connection  of 
this  description.  Sanctioned  by  custom,  these  left- 
handed  marriages  are  to  be  found  with  a  certain  re- 

*  These  connections,  however,  produce  more  crimes  than,  judging 
from  appearances,  you  would  conceive.  Adultery,  as  it  will  be 
shown,  causes  many  of  the  poisonings ;  but  it  is  the  wife  who  kills 
her  husband-— not  from  jealousy,  but  disgust — not  because  she  loves, 
but  because  she  wants  to  get  rid  of  him. 


GALLANTRY.  85 

spectability  appertaining  to  them  in  all  walks  of  life. 
The  working  classes  have  their  somewhat  famous 
"  marriages  de  St.  Jacques,'"'  which  among  themselves 
are  highly  respectable.  The  working  man,  and  the 
lady  who  takes  in  washing,  or  who  makes  linen,  find 
it  cheaper  and  more  comfortable  ("for  the  French  have 
their  idea  of  comfort)  to  take  a  room  together.  They 
take  a  room,  put  in  their  joint  furniture  (one  bed 
answers  for  both)  ;  the  lady  cooks  ;  a  common  menage 
and  a  common  purse  are  established,  and  the  couple's 
affection  usually  endures  at  least  as  long  as  their  lease. 
People  so  living,  though  the  one  calls  himself  Mr. 
Thomas,  and  the  other  Mademoiselle  Clare,  are  mar- 
ried a  la  St.  Jacques,  and  their  union  is  considered  in 
every  way  reputable  by  their  friends  and  neighbours 
during  the  time  of  its  continuance. 

The  proportion  of  illegitimate  to  legitimate  children 
in  the  department  of  the  Seine,  as  given  by  M.  Cha- 
brol,  would  be  one  to  two  ;*  add  to  this  proportion  the 
children  born  in  marriage  and  illegitimately  begot- 
ten ! 

The  hospitals  of  the  "  Enfanstrouves,"  which,  under 
their  present  regulations,  are  nothing  less  than  a  human 
sacrifice  to  sensual  indulgence,  remove  the  only  check 
that  in  a  country  without  religion  can  exist  to  illicit 
intercourse.  There  is  then  far  more  libertinage  in 
France  than  in  any  other  civilized  country  in  Europe  ; 
but  it  leads  less  than  in  other  countries  to  further 
depravity.  Not  being  considered  a  crime,  incontinence 
does  not  bring  down  the  mind  to  the  level  of  crime.  It  is 
looked  upon,  in  fact,  as  merely  a  matter  of  taste  ;  and 
very  few  people,  in  forming  their  opinion  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  woman,  would  even  take  her  virtue  into  con- 
sideration. Great  indeed  are  the  evils  of  this ;  but  it 
also  has  its  advantages :  in  England,  where  honour, 
probity,  and  charity  are  nothing  to  the  woman  in  whom 
chastity  is  not  found, — to  her  who  has  committed  one 

*  Naissances  par  mois. — D6partement  de  la  Seine, 

in  marriage         20,782 

out  of  marriage  10,139. 

8 


86  CHARACTERISTICS. 

error  there  is  no  hope, — and  six  months  frequently 
separate  the  honest  girl  of  respectable  parents  and  good 
prospects  from  the  abandoned  prostitute,  associated 
with  thieves,  and  whipped  in  Bridewell  for  her  dis- 
orders. 

But  the  quasi  legitimate  domesticity  consecrated  by 
the  name  of  St.  Jacques  is  French  gallantry  in  its 
sober,  modern,  and  republican  form  :  it  dates,  probably, 
from  the  revolution  of  1789  ;  while  the  more  light  and 
courtly  style  of  gallantry,  which  you  find  not  less  at  the 
Elysees  Belleville*  and  the  Chaumi^re  than  in  the 
stately  hotels  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  and  the 
Chaussee  d'Antin,  mingles  with  the  ancient  history  of 
France,  and  has  long  taken  that  root  among  the  man- 
ners which  might  be  expected  from  the  character  of 
the  nation. 

Commencing  with  Frangois  I.,  it  succeeded  that 
chivalrous  adoration  with  which  the  fair  had  been 
hitherto  superstitiously  adored.  The  veil  which  till 
then  had  been  drawn  about  the  sex  was  of  that  pure 
and  ethereal  nature  which  suited  the  barbarism  of  an 
age  that  could  not  be  trusted  to  see  things  with  the 
naked  eye.  On  first  ceasing  to  be  a  divinity,  woman 
became  little  better  than  a  harlot ;  and  amid  the 
masked  debauchery  of  the  Medici,  there  was  not  even 
the  pretence  of  sentiment  to  sanctify  the  passionate 
caprice.  A  more  gentle  refinement  breathed  over  the 
gallantry  of  the  Fronde,  when,  still  in  the  memory  of 
Buckingham's  romantic  passion,  a  sovereign  was  braved 
for  the  smile  of  a  mistress,  and  the  cavalier  who  has 
come  down  to  us  as  a  sage  said  so  gracefully  to  the 
queen  of  his  affections — 

"  Pour  m^riter  vos  charmes,  pour  plaire  a  vos  beaux  yeux, 
J'ai  fait  la  guerre  au  roi,  je  I'aurais  faite  aux  Dieux."f 

No !  Monsieur  le  Chevalier  de  St.  Louis  !  it  is  not 
from  the  destruction  of  the  Bastille  that  we  are  to  date 

*  See  the  excellent  caricature  of  "  Le  Diable  hors  les  Barrieres." 
t  De  la  Rochefoucauld. 


GALLANTRY.  87 

those  soft  indecorums  you  so  religiously  deplore.  I 
forget  the  cardinal's  name,  perhaps  you  will  remember 
it,  whom  the  conclave  ought  to  have  elected  in  order 
to  suit  the  tablets  of  the  mother  of  the  great  Conde, 
and  of  that  beautiful  Duchess  de  Longueville  to  whom 
the  graceful  couplet  I  have  quoted  was  addressed.  Is 
it  not  Madame  de  Motteville  who  says  that  this  great 
lady,  sitting  one  day  with  Anne  of  Austria  and  the 
ladies  of  her  court,  was  informed  that  the  cardinal, 
whose  name  1  cannot  at  this  moment  call  to  mind,  had 
been  unsuccessful  in  his  candidature  for  the  papal 
chair  ? — "  Ah  /"  said  the  good  princess,  "/e;i  suisfdcMe 
il  ne  me  manquait  qu'un  pape,  pour  dire  que  f  avals  eu  des 
amans — pa^pe^  roi^ministres^  guerriers,  et  simples  gentil- 
hommesy 

The  excellent  Ninon,  whom  I  have  already  quoted, 
and  who  lived  and  loved  at  this  time,  as  she  lived  and 
loved  long  afterward,  has  left  us,  in  her  farewell  letter 
to  Monsieur  de  Sevigne,  a  charming  description  of  that 
French  gallantry  which  existed  in  her  day,  and  sur- 
vives in  ours.  "  It  is  over,  marquis  ;  I  must  open  my 
heart  to  you  without  reserve  :  sincerity,  you  know,  was 
always  the  predominant  quality  of  my  character. 
Here  is  a  new  proof  of  it.  When  we  swore,  by  all  that 
lovers  hold  most  sacred,  that  death  alone  could  disunite 
us — that  our  passion  should  endure  for  ever — our  vows, 
on  my  side,  at  all  events,  were  sincere.  Admire  the 
strangeness  of  this  heart,  and  the  multitude  of  contra- 
dictions of  which,  alas  !  it  is  capable.  I  now  write  in 
the  same  sincerity  that  breathed  in  my  former  oaths, 
to  assure  you  that  the  love  I  felt — I  feel  no  longer. 
Instead  of  endeavouring  to  deceive  myself,  and  to 
deceive  you,  I  have  thought  it  more  worthy  of  both  to 
speak  frankly.  When  the  thing  is  true,  why  not  say, 
*/  love  you  no  more^  with  the  same  sincerity  with 
which  one  said,  '  /  love  you  V  "  Nor  was  this  levity 
in  love  the  lady's  peculiar  characteristic.  A  little  his- 
tory in  Madame  de  Sevigne  describes  a  scene  in  which 
the  gentleman  acts  perfectly  ^la  Ninon.  "The  Che- 
valier de  Lorraine  called  the  other  day  upon  the  F  ; 


88  CHARACTERISTICS. 

she  wished  to  play  La  Disesperec.  The  chevalier, 
with  that  beautiful  air  which  you  recollect,  endeavoured 
to  do  away  at  once  with  her  embarrassment.  '  What 
is  the  matter,  mademoiselle  V  said  he  ;  '  why  are  you 
out  of  spirits  ?  What  is  there  extraordinary  in  the 
accident  that  has  happened  to  us?  We  loved  one 
another  ;  we  love  one  another  no  longer.  Constancy 
is  not  the  virtue  of  our  age.  We  had  much  better 
forget  the  past,  and  assume  the  ordinary  manners  of  the 
world. —  What  a  pretty  little  dog  you  have  got  /'  And 
thus,"  says  Madame  de  Sevign6,  "  ended  this  belle 
passiony 

How  many  modern  anecdotes  do  I  remember  of 
the  same  description  !  It  was  but  the  other  day  that 
a  lady  called  upon  a  friend  whom  she  found  in  despair 
at  the  fickleness  of  men.  Surprised  at  this  extraor- 
dinary display  of  affliction,  "  Be  comforted,"  said  the 
lady  to  her  friend  ;  "  be  comforted,  for  heaven's  sake  ; 
after  all,  these  misfortunes  are  soon  replaced  and  for- 
gotten.    You  remember  Monsieur  C ,  he  treated 

me  in  the  same  way ;  for  the  first  week  1  was  dis- 
consolate, it  is  true — but  now — mon  Dieu  ! — I  have 
almost  forgotten  that  he  ever  existed." — "  Ah !  my 
dear,"  said  the  lady,  who  was  in  the  wane  of  her 
beauty,  and  whom  these  soothing  words  failed  to  con- 
sole, "  there  is,  alas  !  this  great  difference  between  us 

— Monsieur   C was  your  first   lover — Monsieur 

R is  my  last !"     Love,  that  cordial,  heart-in-heart 

kind  of  love  which  our  English  poets  have  sometimes 
so  beautifully  depicted,  is  not  to  be  found  in  France. 
In  every  step  of  a  French  amour  you  are  overpowered 
by  words,  you  are  adored,  idolized  ;  but  in  all  the  grace- 
ful positions  into  which  gallantry  throws  itself,  as  amid 
all  the  phrases  it  pours  forth,  there  wants  that  quiet 
and  simple  air,  that  deep,  and  tender,  and  touching, 
and  thrilling  tone,  which  tell  you  beyond  denial  that 
the  heart  your  own  yearns  to  is  really  and  truly  yours. 
The  love  which  you  find  in  France  is  the  love  made 
for  society — not  for  solitude  :  it  is  that  love  which  be- 
fits the  dazzling  salon,  the  satined  boudoir ;  it  is  that 


GALLANTRY.  89 

love  which  mixes  with  intrigue,  with  action,  with  poli- 
tics, and  affairs  ;  it  is  that  love  which  pleases,  and 
never  absorbs  ;  which  builds  no  fairy  palace  of  its  own, 
but  which  scatters  over  the  trodden  paths  of  life  more 
flowers  than  a  severer  people  lind  there. 

With  this  love  the  history  of  France  is  full.  So 
completely  is  it  national,  that  the  most  gallant  reigns 
have  never  failed  to  be  the  most  popular.  The  name 
of  Henri  IV.  is  hardly  more  historical  than  that  of  the 
fair  Gabrielle  ;  nor  has  it  ever  been  stated,  in  diminu- 
tion of  the  respect  still  paid  to  this  wise  and  beloved 
king,  that  his  paramour  accompanied  him  in  the  coun- 
cil, kissed  him  publicly  before  his  court,  and  publicly 
received  his  caresses.  No  :  the  French  saw  nothing 
in  this  but  that  which  was  tout  Frangais ;  and  the  only 
point  which  they  consider  of  importance  is  that  the 
belle  Gabrielle  was  really  belle.  On  this  point,  con- 
sidering their  monarch's  mistress  as  their  own,  they  are 
inexorable  ;  and  nothing  tended  so  much  to  depopular- 
ize  Louis  XIV.  as  his  matrimonial  intrigue  with  the 
ugly  old  widow  of  Scarron.  Nor  is  it  in  the  amours 
of  their  monarchs  only  that  the  French  take  an  interest. 
Where  is  the  great  man  in  France  whose  fame  is  not 
associated  with  that  of  some  softer  being — of  some 
softer  being  who  has  not  indeed  engrossed  his  exist- 
ence, but  who  has  smoothed  and  rounded  the  rough 
and  angular  passages  of  public  and  literary  life  ? 

Where  is  the  Voltaire  without  his  Madame  de  Cha- 
telet  ?  and  yet,  what  was  the  nature  of  the  poet's  love 
for  the  lady  whose  death-bed  he  wept  over,  saying, 
"  Ce  gTOssier  St.  Lambert  I'a  tuee  en  lui  faisant  un 
enfant?" 

Where  is  the  Mirabeau  without  his  Sophie  de  Ruf- 
fay  ?  and  yet,  what  was  the  patriot's  passion  for  his 
mistress,  whom  he  sacrificecl  to  the  payment  of  his 
debts,  and  with  whose  adoration  he  blended  the  night- 
mare reveries  of  a  satyr's  mind  ?* 

How  many  gentle  episodes  throw  their  softening 

*  See  the  publication  written  at  the  same  time  as  "  Les  Lettres  k 
Sophie." 


90  CHARACTERISTICS. 

colours  on  the  sanguinary  superstitions  of  the  League 
— on  the  turbulent  and  factious  gatherings  of  the 
Fronde — on  the  fierce  energies  and  infernal  horrors  of 
the  revolution  !  How  gracefully,  in  defiance  of  Robes- 
pierre, did  the  gallantry  which  decorated  the  court 
survive  in  the  prison,  and  sigh  forth  its  spirit  on  the 

scaffold  ! 

I  shall  elsewhere  have  to  speak  of  the  power  which 
women  still  exercise  in  France  over  public  affairs. 
Here  I  shall  merely  observe,  that  though  not  so  great 
as  it  was,  it  is  still  considerable  ;  nor  when  we  speak 
of  the  influences  of  our  own  aristocracy  may  it  be 
amiss  to  remember  that  influences  something  similar, 
and  equally  illegitimate,  may  exist  among  a  people  of 
equals,  when  a  cause  is  to  be  found  in  ancient  man- 
ners and  national  character. 


VANITY. 

Story  of  Escousse  and  Lebras — French  vanity  not  only  ridiculous- 
Cause  of  union — Do  any  thing  with  a  Frenchman  by  saying, "  Fran- 
(jais,  soyez  Fran^ais  !" — French  passion  for  equality  because  France 
is  "  toute  marquise" — Story  of  a  traveller  sixty  years  ago — A  for- 
tunate prince  in  France  easily  despotic — Bonaparte's  exemplification 
of  the  force  of  a  national  passion — His  proclamation  on  landing 
at  Elba — Vanity  causes  fine  names,  gave  force  to  old  corporations, 
gives  force  to  modern  associations — Apphed  to  the  nation,  vanity 
not  ridiculous  ;  applied  to  individuals,  ridiculous — Old  men  and  old 
women  gratify  one  another  by  appearing  to  make  love — The  prin- 
ciple of  making  a  fortune  by  spending  it — The  general  effects  of 
vanity. 

The  beautiful  song  to  be  found  in  the  note  at  the 
bottom  of  the  next  page  was  the  tribute  paid  by  M. 
Beranger  to  two  youthful  poets  who  destroyed  them- 
selves after  the  failure  of  a  small  piece  at  the  "  Gaiete." 
"  Je  t'attends  a  onze  heures  et  demie,"  writes  M.  Es- 
cousse to  his  friend  Lebras — "  the  curtain  shall  be 


VANITY.  91 

lifted  so  that  we  may  precipitate  the  denouement^* 
On  the  receipt  of  this  theatrical  little  billet,  M.  Lebras 

*  LE  SUICIDE. 

SDR    LA.    MORT   DES    JEUNE    VICTOR    ESCOUSSE  ET  AUGUSTE  LEBRAB 
FEV.    1832. 

Quoi,  morts  tous  deux !  dans  cette  chambre  close 

Oa  du  charbon  p^se  encore  la  vapeur  ! 

Leur  vie  helas  6tait  a  peine  eclose. 

Suicide  afifreux  !  triste  objet  de  stupeur  ' 

lis  auront  dit :  le  monde  fait  naufrage 

Voyez  palir  pilote  et  matelots 

Vieux  batiment  use  par  tous  les  flots ; 

II  s'engloutit :  sauvons-nous  a  la  nage. 

Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 

lis  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main. 

Pauvres  enfans  !  I'echo  murmure  encore 
L'air  qui  berqa  votre  premier  sommeil. 
Si  quelque  brume  obscurcit  votr.;  aurore, 
Leur  disait-on,  attendez  le  soleil. 
lis  repondaient :  Qu'importe  que  la  s^ve 
Monte  enrichir  les  champs  ou  nous  passons ! 
Nous  n'avonsrien;  arbres,  fleurs  ni  moissons. 
Est-ce  pour  nous  que  le  soleil  se  l^ve  ? 
Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 
lis  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main  ! 

Pauvres  enfans  !  calomnier  la  vie ! 
C'est  par  depit  que  les  vieillards  le  font. 
Est-il  de  coupe  oil  votre  ame  ravie, 
En  la  vidant,  n'ait  vu  I'amour  au  fond  ? 
lis  repondaient :  C'est  le  r^ve  d'un  ange. 
L'amour !  en  vain  notre  voix  I'a  chante. 
De  tout  son  culte  un  autel  est  teste ; 
Y  touchions-nous  ?  I'idole  etait  de  fange. 
Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 
lis  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main ! 

Pauvres  enfans !  mais  les  plumes  venues, 
Aigles  un  jour,  vous  pouviez,  loin  du  nid, 
Bravant  la  foudre  et  depassant  les  nues. 
La  gloire  en  face,  atteindre  a  son  zenith, 
lis  repondaient :  Le  laurier  devient  cendre, 
Cendre  qu'au  vent  I'envie  aime  a  jeter. 
Et  notre  vol  dut-il  si  haut  monter, 
Toujours  pres  d'elle  il  faudra  redescendre. 
Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 
lis  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main. 

Pauvres  enfans !  quelle  douleur  am^re 
N'apaisent  pas  de  saints  devoirs  remplis  ? 


92  CHARACTERISTICS. 

goes  quietly  to  M.  Escoiisse's  lodgings,  and  sits  with 
him  over  the  charcoal  that  had  been  duly  prepared  for 
precipitating  the  "  denouement.''''  M.  Escousse  did  not, 
however,  pass  away  from  the  world  without  leaving 
behind  him,  both  in  prose  and  poesy,  a  record  of  his 
sentiments.  "  I  desire,"  said  he,  "  that  the  public  jour- 
nals which  announce  my  death  will  add  to  their  article 
this  declaration : — 

"  Escousse  killed  himself  because  he  felt  that  his 
place  was  not  here — because  he  wanted  force  at  every 
step  he  took  before  him  or  behind  him — because  the 
love  of  glory  did  not  sufficiently  animate  his  soul, 
if  soul  he  have." — "  Madman,"  says  the  journalist 
who  obeys  his  wish  ;  "  you  die — non  pas  parceque 
la  gloire  vous  manque^  mais parceque  vous  manquez  ala 
gloire.^^  But  M.  Escousse  left  also  poetry  behind  him 
— "  I  desire  that  this  be  the  motto  of  my  book — 

Dans  la  patrie  on  retrouve  une  mere, 
Et  son  drapeau  nous  couvre  de  ses  plis. 
lis  repondaient :  Ce  drapeau  qu'on  escorte 
Au  toil  du  chef,  le  protege  endormi, 
Mais  le  soldat,  teint  du  sang  ennemi 
Veille,  et  de  faim  meurt  en  gardant  la  porta. 
Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 
lis  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main  • 

Pauvres  enfans !  de  fantomes  fun^bres 

Quelque  notrrice  a  peupl6  vos  esprits. 

Mais  un  Dieu  brille  a  travers  nos  tenebres  ; 

Sa  voix  de  p^re  a  du  calmer  vos  cris. 

Ah  !  disaient-ils,  suivons  ce  trait  deflamme. 

N'attendons  pas,  Dieu,  que  tonnom  puissant, 

Qu'on  jette  en  I'air  comme  un  nom  de  passant, 

Soit,  lettrea  lettre,  efface  de  notre  ame. 

Et  vers  le  ciel  se  frayant  un  chemin, 

lis  sont  partis  en  se  dormant  la  main. 

Dieu  createur,  pardonne  a  leur  demence. 

lis  s'etaient  faits  les  echos  de  leurs  sons, 

Ne  sachant  pas  qu'en  une  chaine  immense, 

Non  pour  nous  seuls,  mais  pour  tous,  nous  naissoiM. 

L'humanite  manque  de  saints  apotres 

Qui  leur  aient  dit :  Enfans,  suivez  sa  loi. 

Aimer,  aimer,  c'est  elre  utile  a  soi ; 

Se  faire  aimer,  c'est  etre  utile  aux  autres, 

Et  vers  le  cielse  frayant  un  chemin, 

Us  sont  partis  en  se  donnant  la  main  * 


VANITY.  93 

"  Adieu,  trop  infeconcle  terre, 
Fleaux  humains,  soleil  glace 
Comme  un  fantome  solitaire 
Inaper9U  j'aurai  passe : 
Adieu,  palmes  immortelles, 
Vrai  songe  d'une  ame  de  feu ! 
L'air  manquait,  j'ai  ferm6  les  ailes— Adieu  !" 

The  air  of  the  world  was  too  heavy  for  the  poetical 
wings  of  this  unfortunate  vaudevillist — and  ....  * 

Thus  did  these  two  young  gentlemen  perish,  vic- 
tims of  a  vanity  which  left  them  in  their  dying  hour 
no  more  solemn  thought  than  that  of  their  puny  repu- 
tation. Every  one  will  re-echo  me  when  I  say,  "  the 
French  are  the  vainest  people  in  the  world  ;"  but  I  do 
not  know  whether  every  one  will  treat  their  national 
vanity  in  the  same  manner,  or  take  the  same  view  of 
it,  that  I  do. 

That  vanity  is  not  only  ridiculous ;  it  contains  a 
power  which  many  more  lofty  and  serious  qualities 
would  fail  to  supply.  With  that  vanity  is  combined  a 
capability  for  great  things,  a  magnificence  of  design 
and  a  daringness  of  execution  rare  among  the  pale  and 
frigid  nations  of  the  north.  In  that  vanity  is  security 
to  France,  for  in  that  vanity  is — union.  That  vanity 
it  is  which  concentrates  and  connects  a  people  differ- 
ent in  their  manners,  different  in  their  origin,  different 
in  their  climate,  different  even  in  their  language.  That 
vanity  it  is  which  gives  to  thirty-three  millions  of  indi- 
viduals one  heart  and  one  pulse.  Go  into  any  part  of 
France,  some  districts  of  Brittany  perhaps  excepted, 
and  let  any  body  of  persons  be  assembled ;  address 
them  to  sooth  or  to  excite  ;  say,  "  Vive  la  liberte  !" 
there  are  times  when  you  will  not  be  listened  to. 
"  Vive  le  roi ! — vive  la  charte  ! — vive  la  republique  !" 
these  are  all  rallying-cries  which  will  now  be  hissed, 
and  now  applauded :  but  cr}'-,  "  Vive  la  France  !" 
"  Vive  la  belle  France !  songez  que  vous  etes  Fran- 
^ais  !"  and  almost  before  the  words  are  out  of  your 

*  A  young  man  who  killed  himself  not  long  ago  left  behind  him  a 
/ariety  of  articles  which  he  had  written  upoii  his  suicide  and  him* 
self,  and  which  he  begged  his  friends  to  get  inserted  in  the  different 
papers; 


94  CHARACTERISTICS. 

mouth,  your  voice  will  be  drowned  with  cheers,  and  a 
circulating  and  sympathetic  thrill  will  have  rushed 
through  the  breast  and  brought  tears  into  the  eyes  of 
every  one  of  your  audience.  If  you  were  to  say  to 
an  Englishman,  "  Give  me  up  your  property,  and  give 
me  up  your  liberty,  and  give  me  up  your  life,  for  the 
sake  of  England,"  he  would  say,  "  Stop  a  little  !  what 
is  England  to  me  without  my  property,  and  my  liberty, 
and  my  life  1  my  liberty,  my  property,  and  my  life  are 
England  to  me  all  the  world  over."  Not  so  the  French- 
man :  talk  to  him  of  France  ;  tell  him  that  what  you 
wish  is  for  the  interest  and  the  glory  of  France,  and 
he  will  let  you  erect  scaffolds,  and  send  his  children 
to  the  guillotine  and  the  battle  ;  he  will  stop  in  the 
highest  fever  of  freedom  to  bow  to  the  most  terrible 
dictatorship,  and  stick  the  red  cap  of  democracy  on 
the  triumvirate  tyranny  of  Robespierre,  Couthon,  and 
St.  Just.  There  is  nothing  you  may  not  do  with  him 
under  the  charm  of  those  irresistible  words,  "  Franqais, 
soyez  Frangais  .'" — "  The  Englishman,"  as  an  author 
lately  observed,  "  is  proud  of  his  nation  because  it  be- 
longs to  himself;  the  Frenchman  is  proud  of  him- 
self because  he  belongs  to  his  nation."*  This  is  true  ; 
and  this  is  true  because  a  Frenchman's  vanity  induces 
him  to  prefer  to  himself  the  association  which  con- 
nects him  with  something  greater  than  himself;  so 
merit  is  more  honoured  in  France  than  in  England,  be- 
cause the  Frenchman  at  once  connects  his  own  fame 
with  the  fame  of  the  sage  or  the  warrior  of  his  land, 
and  loves  and  cherishes  his  countryman's  reputation  as 
a  part  of  himself.  "  It  was  not  from  a  massive  bar 
of  iron,  but  from  a  small  and  tiny  needle,"  as  my 
Lord  Bacon  observes,  "  that  we  discovered  the  great 
mystery  of  nature  :"  and  thus  is  it  often  by  marking 
carefully  those  passions  which,  looked  at  superficially, 
appear  the  smallest  and  the  meanest,  that  we  trace  the 
causes  of  a  nation's  principal  distinctions. 

Let  me  also  remark,  that  things  which  appear  the 

*  England  and  the  English. 


VANITY.  95 

most  incomprehensible,  as  we  regard  tlie  institutions 
of  a  country,  explain  themselves  frequently  as  we  in- 
form ourselves  of  the  character  of  its  people.  A  fierce 
republican  asked  a  friend  of  mine  the  other  day  to 
procure  him  the  order  of  St.  Anne  from  the  Emperor 
of  Russia.  How  do  you  account  for,  and  how  do  you 
reconcile,  that  passion  for  equality,  and  that  avidity 
for  distinction,  which  burn  at  the  same  moment  in  a 
French  bosom  ?  Do  you  believe  in  the  one  and  doubt 
the  other  1  They  both  in  reality  exist :  and  they  both 
exist  because  the  Frenchman  is — vain.  France  is  re- 
publican because  France  is,  as  Madame  de  Stael  said, 
toute  marquise — a  general  desire  for  honours  forbids  a 
privilege  to  exist. 

I  have  said  that  merit  is  more  honoured  in  France 
than  in  England,  because  the  Frenchman  at  once  asso- 
ciates himself  with  the  greatest  glory  to  which  he  can 
possibly  claim  affinity.  For  this  reason — a  govern- 
ment strong  and  lucky  will  find  little  difficulty  in  doing 
what  it  pleases.  Instead  of  being  afraid  or  jealous  of 
its  power,  the  French  will  be  vain  of  it.  The  greater 
and  more  terrible  such  a  government  is,  the  greater 
and  more  terrible  will  they  think  themselves  to  be. — 
"  I  was  stopping  one  night  at  a  country  inn,"  says  an 
English  traveller,  whose  journey  took  place  about  sixty 
years  ago  ;  "  the  court-yard  was  filled  with  the  equi- 
page, and  the  kitchen  with  the  retinue,  of  a  *  grand 
seigneur,'  who  was  proceeding  to  his  government  in 
the  south.  My  room  was  not  very  distant  from  the 
French  nobleman's,  and  just  as  I  was  going  to  bed,  I 
heard  a  tremendous  noise  in  the  passage,  and  the  min- 
gled ejaculations  of  threatening  and  supplication. 
What  is  the  cause  of  this  ? — thought  I — with  the  ner- 
vousness of  a  traveller  in  a  strange  country ;  and 
wrapping  a  cloak  around  me,  I  sallied  forth  into  the 
dimly  lit  corridor,  which  ran  from  one  end  of  the  '  au- 
berge'  to  the  other.  I  was  not  long  in  a  state  of  sus- 
pense :  before  me,  in  a  brocaded  dressing-gown,  was 
my  illustrious  neighbour  for  the  night,  laying  a  light 
cane — which  actually  clung  to  the  form  it  curled  round 


\)b  CIIARACTERJSTICS. 

— Oil  the  back  of  his  unfortunate  valet.  At  my  ap- 
pearance the  '  grand  seigneur'  ended  his  operations 
with  one  tremendous  kick,  and  retired  into  his  apart- 
ment. I  could  not  refrain  from  going  up  to  the  mise- 
rable wretch  who  stood  whining  and  shivering  before 
me.  '  Be  comforted,'  said  I,  '  my  good  fellow,  your 
master  has  used  you  most  shamefully,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  the  law  will  give  you  redress  for  his  brutal- 
ity.'— 'My  master,  sir,'  said  the  valet,  immediately 
drawing  himself  up  with  dignity,  '  is  far  too  great  a 
man  for  the  law  to  reach  ;  and  indeed,  for  the  matter 
of  that,  all  the  masters  whom  I  have  ever  served  could 
get  a  lettre-de-cachet  for  the  asking.'  D — n  the  fel- 
low, if  he  was  not  proud  of  his  master's  being  able  to 
beat  him  with  impunity !"  Just  so — he  was  much 
more  alive  to  the  vanity  of  having  for  a  master  a  gen- 
tleman, who  could  beat  his  servants  with  impunity, 
than  he  was  to  the  disgrace  of  being  one  of  the  ser- 
vants beaten.  A  successful  prince  then  may  always, 
in  France,  be  a  despotic  one ;  but  wo  to  the  unfortu- 
nate prince  who  would  imitate  his  example.  In  Eng- 
land there  is  usually  a  sympathy  with  the  sinking 
cause,  and  after  it  has  reached  a  certain  mark  there 
is  almost  sure  to  be  an  ebb  in  our  displeasure.  In 
France  it  is  quite  the  reverse — the  "  grand  homme" — 
if  you  succeed  :  you  are  a  "  scelerat,"  a  "  coquin,"  a 
"  parjure,"  every  thing  that  is  atrocious,  if  you  are  guilty 
of — misfortune.  It  is  not  that  the  French  are  in  pri- 
vate an  ill-natured  or  an  ungrateful  people,  but  their 
vanity  cannot  endure  being  on  the  losing  side,  and  they 
take  all  pains  to  convince  themselves  that  they  are 
called  upon  to  quit  it.  The  reign  and  career  of  Bo- 
naparte was  perhaps  the  strongest  exemplification  ever 
known  of  the  force  of  a  national  passion.  The  French 
gazed  upon  his  bridges,  his  harbours,  his  canals,  his 
triumphal  arches,  his  temples,  and  every  individual 
said,  "  What  a  great  person  I  am,  to  have  an  emperor 
who  has  done  all  this."  Harassed,  decimated,  oppressed 
as  the  nation  was, — faint  and  exhausted,  it  followed 
him  on  to  the  verge  of  his  fortune,  and  left  him — at 


VANITY.  07 

the  first  defeat ;  and  now  that  the  statue  of  their  an- 
cient idol  is  again  put  up,  was  it  justice  that  put  it  up  ? 
Ask  those  who  are  still  in  exile  !  Ask  Lucien  or  Louis 
Bonaparte  ! — they  could  tell  you  that  justice  refuses  a 
home  to  the  "  citizen,"  while  vanity  restores  the  monu- 
ment of  the  "  hero."  We  have  wondered  at  the  success 
of  the  hundred  days.  If  the  marshal  whose  punish- 
ment remains  a  blot  on  our  national  escutcheon  had 
simply  read  in  his  defence  that  marvellous  proclama- 
tion which  made  him  an  involuntary  perjurer,  not  even 
the  Chamber  of  Peers  could  have  pronounced  his  con- 
demnation. "  Ceux  que  nous  avons  vus  pendant  vingt- 
cinq  ans  parcourir  toute  I'Europe  pour  nous  susciter 
des  ennemis,  qui  ont  passe  leur  vie  a  combattre  centre 
nous  dans  les  rangs  des  armees  etrang^res,  en  mau- 
dissant  notre  belle  France,  pretendraient-ils  commander 
et  enchainer  nos  aigles  ?  souffrirons-nous  qu'ils  heri- 
tent  du  fruit  de  nos  glorieux  travaux  1  Soldats,  dans 
mon  exil  j'ai  entendu  votre  voix ;  je  suis  arrive  a  tra- 
vers  tous  les  obstacles,  et  tons  les  perils.  Votre  gene- 
ral, appele  au  tr6ne  par  le  choix  du  peuple,  et  eleve 
sur  vos  pavois,  vous  est  rendu :  venez  le  joindre  !  Ar- 
rachez  ces  couleurs  que  la  nation  a  proscrites,  et  qui 
pendant  vingt-cinq  ans  servirent  de  ralliement  k  tous 
les  ennemis  de  la  France ;  arborez  cette  cocarde  tri- 
colore,  vous  la  portiez  dans  vos  grandes  journees.  Les 
veterans  des  armees  de  Sambre  et  Meuse,  du  Rhin, 
d'l  alie,  d'Egypte,  et  de  I'ouest  sont  humilies,  leurs 
honorables  cicatrices  sont  fletries !  Soldats,  venez 
vous  ranger  sous  les  drapeaux  de  votre  chef;  la  vic- 
toire  marchera  au  pas  de  charge  ;  I'aigle,  avec  les  cou- 
leurs nationales  volera  de  clocher  en  clocher  jusqu'aux 
tours  de  N6tre  Dame."*     I  know  nothing  in  history  so 

*  Frenchmen !  shall  they  who  for  twenty-five  years  traversed 
Europe  to  find  enemies  against  us — shall  they  who  have  passed  their 
lives  m  foreign  ranks,  execrating  our  beautiful  France — shall  these 
men  command  and  enchain  our.  eagles  ?  Shall  we  suffer  these  men 
to  inherit  the  fruit  of  our  glorious  labours?  Soldiers !  in  my  exile  I 
heard  your  voice.  I  am  here  in  spite  of  a  thousand  obstacles,  and  a 
thousand  perils  !  Your  general,  called  to  the  throne  by  the  choice  of 
the  people,  and  educated  under  your  banners,  is  restored  to  you. 
Come  and  join  him '  Tear  down  those  colours  which  the  nation  has 
Vol.  L— E  9 


98  CHARACTKUISTICS. 

eloquent  as  this  proclamation  for  the  army  and  the 
people  it  was  addressed  to.  Not  an  expression  is 
omitted  that  could  touch  the  nation  in  its  most  sensible 
part ;  for  nobody  knew  better  than  Napoleon  that — a 
great  man  must  imbody  a  great  passion :  he  pre- 
sented himself  to  France  as  the  vision  of  her  vanity 
and  her  glory :  we  know  how  he  was  received. 

But  as  a  Frenchman  will  connect  himself  when  he 
can  with  any  thing  greater  than  himself,  so  he  will 
endeavour  to  make  magnificent  the  meanest  objects 
that  he  belongs  to.  In  no  country  do  ordinary  things 
write  themselves  in  such  fine  names  as  in  France. 
Your  miserable  circulating  library  is  a  "  salon  lite- 
raire  ;"  your  blockless  barber  "  un  artiste  ;"  your  poor 
apothecary  a  "  pharmacien  ;"  your  kitchen  a  "  labora- 
toire^;"  your  common  copyist  ''  a  man  of  letters." 
Every  class  in  France  has  an  extraordinary  respect 
for  itself.  "  J'ai  I'honneur  de  vous  presenter  mes  re- 
spects," says  one  scavenger,  "  Et  comment  se  porte, 
madame  ?"  replies  the  other.  So  the  gar§ons  of  the 
cafe  take  off  their  hats  to  one  another ;  the  lowest  of 
the  working  classes  do  the  same.  This  gives  any 
body  or  order  of  men,  once  called  into  existence  in 
France,  such  consistency  and  strength — this  gives  to 
all  associations  in  France  a  force  which  it  would  be 
vain  to  calculate  upon  elsewhere — this  is  what  contrib- 
uted to  give  the  ancient  magistracy,  the  old  corpora- 
tions, and  the  old  nobility  of  France,  the  immense 
power  they  possessed — this  gives  the  literary  institu- 
tions of  France,  and  not  only  the  literary  institutions 
but  the  literary  men  of  France,  such  an  immense  power 
at  the  present  day — and  above  all,  this  gives,  as  I  have 
said,  that  spirit  of  combination  and  concentration  to 
the  French  as  a  nation,  which  it  is  so  important  for  a 

proscribed,  and  which  during  twenty -five  years  served  to  rally  all  the 
enemies  of  France  !  Hoist  that  tri-coloured  banner  which  you  bore 
aloft  on  our-great  days  !  The  veterans  of  the  armies  of  the  Sambre 
and  Meuse,  of  the  Rhine,  of  Italy,  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  west  are  hu- 
miliated :  their  honourable  wounds  are  disgraced.  Soldiers,  range 
yourselves  under  the  banners  of  your  cliief !  La  victoire  marchera 
au  pas  de  charge;  I'aigle  avec  les  couleurs  nationales  volera  de 
clocher  en  clocher  jusqu'aux  tours  de  Notre  Dame. 


VANITY.  99 

military  people  to  possess.  Applied  to  France,  then, 
French  vanity  is  not  ridiculous  ;  applied  to  the  French 
individually,  it  does,  1  confess,  very  frequently  become 
so.*  Just  see  that  old  man  with  a  bald  head,  one  dark 
tooth,  and  a  light  limp  from  the  gout !  That  old  gen- 
tleman said  to  a  lady  of  my  acquaintance  the  other 
day,  "  I  am  very  unhappy,  madam,  what  is  to  be  done 
in  society  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know !  1  am  a  man  of 
honour.  I  see  those  young  creatures"  (pointing  out 
two  or  three  of  the  prettiest  women  in  the  room),  "  I 
see  those  young  creatures,  the  tears  in  their  eyes, — 
pierced  to  the  heart  by  a  gentle  glance — I  say  to  my- 
self, si  je  me  lance  .  .  .  the  mischief  is  done  :  but  I 
retire  ;  I  can't  help  pitying  those  beautiful  flowers 
which  a  soft  indiscretion  might  for  ever  tarnish ;  I 
can't  help  feeling  pity  for  them,  madam ;  I  am  a  man 
of  honour  ;  but  what  distresses  me  is  to  find  that  every- 
body has  not  the  same  pity  that  I  have."  The  old 
gentleman  spoke  with  perfect  sincerity :  by  a  kind  of 
mutual  sympathy  for  each  other's  weaknesses,  both 
sexes  in  France  cheerfully  accord  that  old  age  is  no 
impediment  to  the  tender  passion :  nor  is  it  so  indeed, 
if  the  aged  lady  or  the  aged  gentleman  have  any  thing 
beyond  their  personal  charms  to  gratify  the  self-love 
of  an  admirer. 

That  the  infamous  Due  de  Richelieu  at  seventy  deso- 
lated a  province  with  his  intrigues  is  perfectly  con- 
ceivable to  any  one  who  has  seen  the  cold  and  dis- 
gusting manner  with  which  French  women  even  now 
prostitute  themselves  to  a  reputation.  Nor  is  this  all : 
where  no  such  inducement  exists — on  Sawney's  sim- 
ple maxim,  "  I'll  scratch  you  if  you  scratch  me,"  you 
will  frequently  find,  billing  and  cooing  in  some  retired 
corner  of  a  salon,  two  sexagenarian  lovers,  who,  with 

*  A  good  trait  of  French  self-confidence  may  be  found  in  this  an- 
ecdote : — 

Sir  S.  Romill)'  and  Gen.  S were  discussing  some  point  of 

English  law.  Sir  S.  Romilly  stated  his  conviction.  "  Pardonnez 
moi,"  said  the  French  general,  "  wtw  vous  trompez  ^trangement,  mon 
Cher  Romilly,  ^e  le  sais— car— j^ai  lu  Blackstone  ce  matin." 

E  2 


100  CHARACTKRISTICS. 

all  the  skill  of  old  practitioners,  go  through  the  forms 
of  a  courtship  which  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  they  can 
carry  further  than  the  form  : — might  not  one  have  fan- 
cied one's  self  in  that  island  of  Mr.  Moore's, 

"  Where  lips  till  sixty  shed  no  honey, 
And  grandams  were  worth  any  money  ?" 

Might  not  one  have  fancied  one's  self  in  that  island  at  the 
time  when  one  saw  Monsieur  de  Chateaubriand  (sixty 
years  old)  desperately  in  love  with  a  "duchesse" 
(of  the  same  age),  while  Madame  de  Recamier  (no 
younger) — flying  France  in  jealousy  of  Monsieur  de 
Chateaubriand — completed  the  misery  of  her  old  lover, 
Benj.  Constant,  who  was  at  once  tormented  by  the  re- 
proaches of  his  aged  wife,  and  the  disdain  of  his  aged 
mistress.  It  is  marvellous  when  a  people  have  a  pre- 
dominant passion,  how  it  insinuates  itself  into  all  their 
affairs.  We  have  seen  the  influence  of  French  vanity 
in  the  government,  the  history,  the  society  of  France, 
we  may  find  it  in  a  remarkable  manner  even  in  the 
commerce.  It  has  established  this  principle,  a  very 
agreeable  one,  no  doubt,  viz. — that  the  way  to  make 
money  is  to  spend  it.  If  you  ask  the  editor  of  a  cer- 
tain newspaper  why  he  has  race-horses,  he  tells  you 
that  a  race-horse  is  an  "  advertisement."  His  car- 
riage is  "  an  advertisement ;"  his  dinners  are  "  adver- 
tisements ;"  his  mistress  is  "  an  advertisement" — and 
the  more  expensive,  and  the  more  faithless  she  is,  the 
better  "  advertisement"  of  course  she  becomes.  This 
is  a  system :  and  as  an  Englishman  toils  for  wealth  in 
order  to  increase  his  comforts,  so  a  Frenchman  dis- 
plays his  extravagance  in  order  to  make  his  fortune. 
Well,  then,  you  find  this  vanity  the  predominating 
genius  of  the  camp,  the  court,  the  counter, — it  reigns 
no  less  at  the  Bourse,  the  Morgue,  or  the  prison.  The 
Frenchman  wishes  to  live  with  ostentation  ;*  if  he 


*  In  1810  a  "notaire's"  clerk,  killed  himself,  leaving  a  piece  of 
paper  behind  him,  on  which  he  declared  that,  having  duly  calculated 
sind  considered,  he  did  not  think  it  possible  for  him  to  be  so  great  a 
man  as  Napoleon — therefore  he  put  an  end  to  his  existence. 


WIT.  101 

cannot  do  this,  he  does  not  care  whether  he  lives  or 
not :  like  most  passions,  this  vanity  is  good  and  bad, 
little  and  great ;  now  sublime,  now  ridiculous  ;  but 
upon  the  whole,  perhaps,  it  appears  in  France  as  more 
good  than  bad,  more  great  than  little,  even  more  sub- 
lime than  ridiculous.  Absurd  in  the  drawing-room  ; 
fatal  in  darker  scenes  ;  it  has  made  the  French  army 
the  most  renowned  in  the  world,  and  the  French  nation 
the  most  united.  But  it  has  also  made  of  the  French 
a  people  eminently  volatile :  eager  for  changes  that 
promise  much,  disgusted  with  utility  that  cannot  boast 
show,  and  impatient  of  plans  that  run  in  a  slow  and 
quiet  course  to  their  perfection 


WIT. 


Saying  of  M.  de  Talleyrand — How  many  events  in  France  a  "bon- 
inofhas  prepared — Vanity  is  the  principal  passion,  wit  is  the  prin- 
cipal talent,  and  supplies  the  chief  amusements  of  the  French — 
They  laugh  at  all  things^Their  ridicule  only  lowers  you  when  it 
lowers  themselves  in  their  estimation — Definition  of  Champfort 
of  the  old  regime — Power  of  wit  against  a  government— Discours 
d'un  roi  citoyen,  1830 — M.  Philippon  and  the  pear — Beranger, 
"  Nain  jaune,"  &c. — Dramatic  caricatures — Bons-mots  or  good 
sayings  found  among  all  classes  and  all  ages— Connection  between 
the  French  language,  and  the  French  wit,  and  French  manners — 
How  far  it  exists  at  present  in  hterature  and  society, 

"  C'est  bien,  c'est  trhs  bien  et  tout  ce  qu'il  faut 
maintenant  ce  sont  les  feux  d'artifices  et  un  bon-mot 
pour  le  peiiple.^^  This  is  the  saying  with  which  M.  de 
Talleyrand  is  reported  to  have  closed  one  of  those 
revolutions  which  his  talent  and  his  times  have  given 
him  the  opportunity  of  deciding — un  bon-mot  pour  le 
peuple  ! — saying  well  worthy  of  Pericles,  when  he  cap- 
tivated that  polished  and  clever  people  of  Greece, — to 
whom  it  is  impossible  to  deny,  that  the  gay,  the  incon- 
stant, the  frivolous,  and  witty  people  around  me,  bear 

a  marked  resemblance. 

9* 


102  CHARACTERISTICS. 

How  many  events  in  this  country  bis  a  bo?i-mot  pre- 
pared  ! — How  many  has  a  hon-mot  completed  !  A  se- 
ries of  bons-mots  (begun  by  Voltaire,  augmented  by 
Diderot,  collected  and  systematized  by  Helvetius), — 
a  series  of  bons-mots  destroyed  the  ancient  religion, 
sapped  the  foundations  of  the  throne,  and  travailed  the 
destinies  of  the  monarchy,  which  Louis  XIV.  ima- 
gined he  had  fixed  for  centuries,  under  the  weight  of 
his  solemn  and  imposing  genius.  "  Ce  ne  sont  pas 
les  depenses  generales,  ce  sont  les  etats  generaux  qu'il 
nous  faut,"  said  M.  Despremesnil — and  a  bon-mot  put 
that  immense  machine  in  motion  which  rolled  heavily 
over  the  gay  and  graceful  court  of  France.  "  Je  ne 
veux  pas  etre  un  cochon  a  I'engrais  dans  le  chateau 
royal  de  Versailles,"  said  the  first  consul,  with  the 
coarse  energy  of  his  character ;  and  the  laugh  being 
excited  in  his  favour,  he  kicked  over  the  speculative 
pyramid  of  Abbe  Sieyes — "  II  n'y  a  qu'un  Frangais  de 
plus,"  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Comte  d'Artois  ;* 
and  as  he  rides  into  Paris,  all  the  world  are  enchanted 


*  The  following  is  the  account  given  of  the  composition  of  this 
famous  phrase  by  a  late  writer,  who  had  the  opportunity  of  knowing 
the  truth  of  what  he  says  : — "  Le  gouvernement  provisoire  regut  le 
Comte  d'Artois  a  la  barri^re,  et  M.  de  Talleyrand  I'accueillit  par  ces 
paroles :  '  Monseigneur,  le  bonheur  que  nous  eprouvons  sera  a  son 
comble,  si  monseigneur  reqoit  avec  la  bonte  divine  qui  distingue  sou 
auguste  maison,  I'hommage  de  notre  tendresse  religieuse.'  Le 
Comte  d'Artois  repondit  quelques  phrases  vagues,  mais  son  esprit 
d'apropos  lui  manqua.  Le  soir  les  membres  du  gouvernement  pro- 
visoire, et  les  conseillers  intimes  de  son  Altesse  Royale,  sentant  la 
nicessitt  de  faire  quelques  uns  de  ces  mots  populaircs  qui  pussent 
reussir  dans  I'opinion,  et  calmer  les  mefiances,  se  riunirent  en  conseil. 
Chacun  d'eux  composa  de  son  mieux  unes  de  ces  phrases  d'apparat, 
une  de  ces  reponses  qui  pussent  se  repandre  dans  Paris  et  la  l<"rance. 
Les  uns  voulaient  que  son  Altesse  Royale  parlat  comme  lieutenant- 
general  du  royaurae,  et  promit  des  institutions  ;  les  autres,  qu'elle  se 
renfermat  dans  ces  mots  vagues  et  alors  a  la  mode  :  '  Drapeau  sans 
tache,' '  panache  blanc,' '  fils  de  Saint  Louis,'  &c.  Mais  enfinune  re- 
daction commune  a  MM.  Beugnot  et  Talleyrand  fut  adoptee  ;  on  I'en- 
voya  a  son  Altesse  Royale,  qui  I'approuva,  et  elle  fut  consignee  an 
Moniteur  du  lendemain  dans  les  termes  suivans :  '  Messieurs  les 
membres  du  gouvernement  provisoire,  je  vous  remercie  de  tout  le 
bien  que  vous  avez  fait  pour  notre  pays  ;  plus  de  division  !  la  paix  et 
la  France !  Je  la  revois — cette  France — et  rien  n'est  change,  ex- 
cepte  quHl  y  a  un  Francais  de  plv^.' "  This  reply  gave  universal  sat- 
isfaction. 


WIT.  103 

at  the  restoration.  Even  the  last  revolution  did  not 
pass  without  its  saying :  "  It  is  an  old  '  garde  national' 
going  to  visit  his  ancient  general,"  said  Louis  Philippe, 
as  he  rode  up  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville :  while  they  who 
put  into  Lafayette's  mouth  the  unhappy  phrase,  "  the 
monarchy  of  July  is  the  best  of  republics,"  founded 
on  a  new  hon-mot — a  new  dynasty.  You  cannot  pass 
twice  round  the  Palais  Royal,  or  go  once  to  the  V^arie- 
tes,  without  being  sensible  that,  as  vanity  is  the  pre- 
dominant passion,  so  wit  is  the  predominant  talent,  and 
supplies  the  principal  amusements  of  the  French. 
They  must  have  wit :  not  the  great  world  alone — not 
only  your  beaux-esprits  and  your  men  of  letters,  but 
the  people,  the  working  classes,  the  mechanics,  the 
watch-makers,  the  carpenters,  the  stone-masons,  the 
people  of  the  "  trades'  unions,"  these  must  have  wit 
— must  be  delighted  by  wit  in  some  shape  or  other :  a 
joke  is  their  opium — it  has  the  effect  of  quieting  and 
inspiring  them,  and  sending  them  home  to  a  good  night 
and  pleasant  dreams.  There  is  nothing  which  for  the 
sake  of  a  laugh  the  French  will  not  contrive  to  render 
ridiculous  :  but  there  is  this  to  observe  in  respect  to 
their  ridicule — it  never  lowers  you  in  their  estimation, 
except  when  by  lowering  you  it  lowers  themselves. 

If  a  general  be  ridiculous,  if  a  government  be  ridicu- 
lous, if  a  king  be  ridiculous,  wo  unto  them ! — For  a 
general  that  is  ridiculous  makes  the  French  army 
ridiculous ;  for  a  government  or  a  king  that  is  ridicu- 
lous makes  the  French  nation  ridiculous,  and  that  is  an 
unpardonable  offence :  but  it  does  not  signify  two 
straws  to  an  individual  how  ridiculous  he  may  be  made 
— no  one  will  think  the  worse  of  him  for  it.  Nobody 
then  cares  at  being  laughed  at  except  a  king,  or  a 
public  man.  To  either  of  these,  the  joke  to  others  is 
no  joke.  Never  was  there  a  government  in  France 
that  did  not  tremble  at  an  epigram,  and  turn  pale  at  a 
caricature  or  a  song.  Lemercier  says  in  his  address 
to  the  Academy — "  L'histoire  de  France  est  ecrite  par 
ses  chansoniers  1"  and  Champfort  wittily  designates 
the    "  old  regime"  as    "  an  absolute   monarchy  tem- 


104  CHARACTERISTICS. 

pered  by  good  sayings,"     The  present  king  and  the 
present  government  have  not  been  spared. 

DiscouRS  d'un  roi  citoyen  l'an  1830. 

Vous  souvenez-vous  de  Jemmapes  ? 
Vous  souvenez-vous  de  Valmy  ? 
J'etais  dans  vos  rangs  a  Jemmapes, 
J'etais  dans  vos  rangs  a  Valmy, 
Fidele  an  drapeau  de  Jemmapes, 
Fiddle  au  drapeau  de  Valmy, 
J'aime  le  souvenir  de  Jemmapes, 
J'aime  le  souvenir  de  Valmy, 
C'etait  en  hiver  a  Jemmapes 
,  C'etait  en  automne  a  Valmy, 

Et  j 'avals  pour  chef  a  Jemmapes, 

Comme  j 'avals  pour  chef  a  Valmy, 

Dumouner,  vainqueur  de  Jemmapes, 

Kellerman,  vainqueur  de  Valmy, 

Si  nos  ennemis  de  Jemmapes, 

Si  nos  ennemis  de  Valmy, 

Nous  attaquaient  comme  a  Jemmapes, 

Nous  attaquaient  comme  a  Vahny, 

Quoique  moins  jeune  qu'a  Jemmapes, 

Et  quoique  plus  vieux  qu'a  Valmy, 

Je  combattrais  comme  a  Jemmapes, 

En  combattant  comme  a  Valmy, 

Voici  mon  epee  de  Jemmapes, 

Et  ma  dragonne  de  Valmy, 

Et  quoique  je  fisse  a  Jemmapes, 

Ce  que  je  fesais  a  Valmy, 

Je  ne  rcQUs,  comme  a  Jemmapes, 

Aucune  bless  u  re  a  Valmy, 

La  nuit  je  reve  de  Jemmapes,  ' 

Ensuite  je  songe  a  Valmy, 

Le  jour  je  parle  de  Jemmapes, 

EnsuUe  je  pense  h  Valmy, 

Peut-on  trop  rever  de  Jemmapes, 

Peut-on  trop  parler  de  Valmy, 

Aux  fils  des  heros  de  Jemmapes, 

Aux  fils  des  heros  de  Valmy, 

Fier  de  Valmy,  fier  de  Jemmapes, 

Fier  de  Jemmapes,  fier  de  Valmy, 

On  ne  dira  jamais  a  Jemmapes, 

On  ne  dira  jamais  a  Vahny, 

Que  je  n'ai  rien  dit  de  Jemmapes, 

Que  je  n'ai  rien  dit  de  Valmy. 


It  is  not  only  the  pen,  the  pencil  has  been  put  into 
requisition,  and  a  pretended  resemblance  between  a 
pear  and  his  majesty's  head  has  thrown  the  court  into 
great  agitation ! ! !     This  is  a  serious  matter,  and  not 


WIT.  105 

very  long  ago  the  government  prosecuted  a  hatmaker 
for  insulting  the  king's  person  by  vending  "  casquettes" 
that  had  some  resemblance  to  the  treasonable  fruit 
Mr.  Philippon,  the  author  of  this  diabolical  comparison, 
has  become  in  consequence  the  Beranger  of  the  revo- 
lution, and  his  two  newspapers,  the  Charivari  and  the 
Caricature,  are  a  little  more  to  be  feared  than  the  two 
Chambers.* 

The  sole  merit  of  many  of  the  drawings  which 
adorn  these  papers  is,  that  they  all  introduce,  in  things 
apparently  the  least  susceptible-  of  it,  the  odious  shape. 
Through  every  variety  of  hat,  bonnet,  cap,  wig,  the 
faithful  pencil  portrays  the  not-to-be-forgotten  pear! 
Some  of  the  prints,  however,  have  a  higher  merit  than 
this  :  among  the  musicians  "  de  la  Chapelle,"  that  is, 
"  the  deputies  of  the  Chambers,"  many  of  the  carica- 
tures are  good  likenesses,  and  a  few  little  "jeux-d'es- 
prits,"  as  satirical  sketches  of  men  and  manners,  account 
for  Mr.  Philippon's  reputation  and  the  success  of  hisi 
journals. 

But  besides  Mr.  Philippon's,  there  are  a  number  of 
small  newspapers  containing  merely  a  series  of  epi- 
grams, and  these  when  cleverly  contrived  are  equally 
formidable  to  the  unfortunate  minister,  who  spares  no 
pains  to  silence  them.  Thus,  I  have  been  told  that 
the  first  prefet  made  by  Mr.  Guizot,  as  minister  of  the 
interior,  was — an  editor  of  "  Figaro,"  while,  by  a  sin- 
gular coincidence,  the  first  exercise  of  his  power  was 
a  claim — of  his  box  at  the  Varietes.  Even  in  this  in-, 
cident  a  trait  of  French  character  is  to  be  found.  .  .  . 

As  no  thorn  goes  more  deep  into  the  side  of  the  King 
of  the  French  than  Mr.  Philippon,  so  no  enemies  were 
so  fatal  to  the  restoration  as  Beranger's  "  le  Nain 
Jaune,"  and  the  "  Tablettes  politiques."  Nor  was  it 
Beranger's  more  serious  and  elevated  odes,  kindling 
the  spirit  of  liberty,  that  was  most  dangerous  to  the 

*  I  remember  a  story  of  Louis  XVIIL,  who,  I  think,  adopted 
the  wiser  policy.  A  person  was  arrested  for  having  called  him  a 
*'  groscochon."— "  And  has  not  the  man  been  deprived  of  his  place?" 
said  the  monarch  ,• '  "who  could  for  a  moment  suppose  that  a  French- 
man cmild  mean  to  call  his  king—*  a  gros  cochon !' " 


106  CHARACTERISTICS. 

Bourbons  ;  it  was  the  light  and  satiric  songs  that, 
wounding  the  vanity,  inspired  the  hatred  of  the  nation 
for  its  bigoted  and  impotent  rulers.  The  "  Nain 
Jaune,"  written  at  Brussels  during  the  earlier  period 
of  the  restoration,  obtained  a  celebrity  which  it  is  now 
difficult  to  account  for.  I  have  extracted  one  or  two 
sentences,  rather  as  a  specimen  of  the  style  of  this 
paper  than  as  being  very  remarkable  for  their  wit. 

"  Dimanche  dernier  on  arreta  une  merci^re  qui, 
n'ayant  pas  ferme  sa  boutique,  selon  I'ordonnance  de 
police,  avait  dit :  '  lis  veulent  nous  faire  detaler,  qu'ils 
y  prennent  garde,  ils  pouraient  bien  detalcr  avant 
nous.' " 

"Dimanche:  Entree  du  boeuf-gras  dans  les  Tuile- 
ries.  Sa  majeste  sortait  de  la  messe  ;  on  s'est  em- 
presse  d'exe cuter  Fair  :  '  oil  peut-on  etre  mieux  qxCau 
sein  de  safamille  V  " 

"  On  lit  dans  les  journaux  de  Paris  du  25, 1'eloge  de 
la  clemence  du  roi,  par  Maitre  Bellart ;  la  condamna- 
tion  a  mort  du  Gt^neral  Dehelle^  celle  du  General  Travot. 
JJannonce  des  noces  et  festins  du  Due  de  Berri  —Que  de 
sujets  de  fete  pour  la  cour  V 

"  On  parle  toujours  d'un  changement  dans  le  minis- 
tere  ;  c'est  dit-on  Monsieur  ou  plut6t  Madame  Angou- 
leme,  qui  doit  remplacer  Monsieur  le  Due  de  Richelieu, 
ce  qui  aneantit  enti^rement  la  responsabilite  ministe- 
rielle  ;  car  I'un  et  I'autre,  comme  on  le  sait,  sont  invio- 
tables:' 

"  Chaque  nation  k  ses  usages.  On  assure  que  le 
grand-inquisiteur  a  ofTert  a  Roi  Ferdinand  de  faire  un 
auto-da-fe  de  six  heret  iques  le  jour  de  son  mariage  ;  et 
que  Clarke  h  propose  de  feter  cclui  du  Due  de  Berri, 
en  faisant  fusilier  deux  marechaux,  quatre  generaux,  et 
six  colonels  V* 

I  have  said  that  ridicule  is  only  of  consequence  to 
those  who,  by  being  ridiculous,  humiliate  the  vanity  of 
their  countrymen  :  a  singular  proof  of  this  is  constantly 
occurring.  No  sooner  has  any  piece  succeeded  at  any 
of  the  larger  theatres,  than  it  is  sure  to  be  travestied 
*  This  was  at  the  time  of  the  proscriptions  and  executions. 


WIT.  1 07 

at  a  small  one.  The  burlesque  attracts  crowds  ;  every- 
body laughs,  everybody  is  delighted;  but  nobody 
takes  a  dislike  to  the  author,  or  fancies  him  one  tittle 
the  worse  for  the  ridicule  that  has  been  cast  upon  him. 
Some  of  the  dramatic  caricatures,  written  even  as 
they  are  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  are  not  without  a 
certain  cleverness.  Rather  hard  on  the  modern  school 
of  dramatists,  says  one  of  them — 

"  A  croire  ces  Messieurs,  on  ne  voit  dans  nos  rues 
Que  les  enfans  trouves  et  les  fenames  perdues." 

I  remember  too  being  much  amused  by  the  last  four 
lines  of  "  Cricri  et  ses  mitrons,"  a  burlesque  of  Henri 
III.,  one  of  the  best  of  the  new  plays,  but  depending 
altogether  for  its  plot  on  the  Duchesse  de  Guise's  lost 
pocket  handkerchief. 

"  Messieurs  et  Mesdames,  cette  piece  est  morale — 
EUe  prouve  aujourd'hui  sans  faire  de  scandale — 
Que  cliez  un  amant,  lorsqu'on  va  le  soir, 
On  peut  oubiier  tout  ....  excepts  son  mouchoir." 

Few  people  have  ever  been  remarkable  in  France 
without  having  a  witticism  of  some  kind  attached  to 
their  reputation. 

Henri  IV.  reigned  by  bons-mots — even  Bonaparte 
made  them.  One  evening,  when  he  was  better  pleased 
with  Madlle.  Georges,  the  present  heroine  of  the  Porte 
St.  Martin,  than  usual,  pulling  her  by  the  ear  (which  was 
his  favourite  endearment),  he  told  her,  in  the  way  that 
emperors  make  love,  "  to  ask  for  any  thing  she  wanted." 
The  actress,  rather  mistaking  her  part,  asked  very 
sentimentally  for  his  imperial  majesty's  portrait. 
*'  O !  if  that  is  all  you  want,"  said  Napoleon,  who 
rather  disapproved  of  the  familiarity, — "if  that  is  all  you 
want," — and  he  took  a  five-franc  piece  out  of  his  waist- 
coat pocket,  "  here  is  my  portrait,  and  a  very  good  like- 
ness it  is."  M.  de  Talleyrand,  at  the  present  time,  is 
the  great  monopolist  of  good  sayings.     The  character 

of  M.  de  S e  is  pretty  well  known.     He  did  not 

make  his  appearance  one  morning  as  usual  at  the 
Chamber  of  Peers.     '*  But,  why  is  not  M.  de  S.  here  V 


108  CHARACTERISTICS. 

says  M.  de  Talleyrand.  "  M.  de  S.  est  malade,"  said 
an  acquaintance.  "  Ha !  ha !"  replies  the  old  states- 
man, shaking  his  head,  "M.  de  S.  est  malade  ! — Mais 
qu'est-ce  done  qii'il  gagne  a.  elre  malade  /"  So,  talking 
one  day  with  a  lady,  rather  universal  in  her  acquire- 
ments— "Which  do  you  like  best,  M.  de  Talleyrand," 

said  the  lady,  "  Madame  de (a  very  pretty  person) 

or  myself  ?"  The  reply  was  not  quite  so  decisive  as 
the  fair  and  accomplished  questioner  expected.  "  Well, 
now,"  said  she  ;  "  but  suppose  we  were  both  to  fall  into 
the  sea,  which  should  you  first  try  to  save  ?" — "  Oh ! 
madame,"  said  the  prince,  "/  should  he  quite  certain 
that  you  could  swim.''''  As  many  of  these  learned  ladies 
are  now  writing  their  memoirs,  and  that  in  rather  a 
liberal  vein,  I  cannot  help  furnishing  them  at  once  with 
a  motto  and  a  lesson  in  the  true  and  clever  reply  of 
Madame  de  Staal  (Mademoiselle  Delaunay)  to  an  ac- 
quaintance— "Did  you  tell  every  thing  in  your  me- 
moirs V  said  the  acquaintance  ;  "  Je  ne  me  suis  peinte 
qu'en  buste,"  said  Mme.  de  Staal. 

Delille  was  remarkable  for  his  dislike  to  have  the 
unprinted  works,  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  declaim- 
ing, committed  to  paper.  One  day  this  poet,  who  was 
blind,  was  reciting  his  compositions  as  usual,  when 
Madame  Dubourg,  with  whom  he  was  on  terms  of 
great  intimacy,  took  a  small  crow-quill  and  began 
writing  very  softly — not  so  softly,  however,  but  that 
Monsieur  Delille  heard  the  scratching  of  the  pen 
against  the  paper :  continuing,  however,  in  his  usual 
tone  of  voice,  instead  of  the  lines  that  were  expected 
from  him,  he  said — 

"  Et  tandis  que  je  dis  mes  chef-d'ceuvres  divers, 
Un  corbeau  devient  pie  et  me  vole  mes  vers." 

Voltaire  was  liberated  from  the  Bastille  (where  he 
had  been  confined  as  the  suspected  author  of  a  satire) 
on  the  success  of  CEdipe  ;  at  which  the  regent  was  so 
delighted  that  he  permitted  the  author  to  return  to 
Paris.  His  first  visit  was  a  visit  of  thanks  to  the 
prince  who  had  granted  him  his  liberty — "  Soyez  sage, 


WIT.  109 

et  faurai  soin  de  vous,''^  said  the  regent.  "Je  re- 
mercie  votre  altesse,"  said  Voltaire,  "  de  ce  qii'elle 
veut  bien  se  charger  de  ma  nourriture,  ttiais  je  la  sup- 
plie  de  ne  plus  se  charger  de  mon  logement.'''' 

A  lady  being  asked  why  she  married  her  son,  who 
was  poor,  to  an  heiress  "  roturiere,"  said,  "  II  faut  bien 
quelquefois  famer'''  (manure)  "  ses  terresP 

This  point  and  quickness  of  repartee  exists  among 
the  lowest  classes  in  France  quite  as  much  as  among 
the  highest.  I  remember — during  a  hard  frost,  and  at 
a  time  when  Monsieur  de  Villele  was  at  the  height  of 
his  unpopularity,  and  every  vision  of  courtly  tyranny 
was  believed — seeing  a  poor  fellow  fall  down  with 
some  violence,  while  a  couple  of  well-dressed  young 
men  stopped  to  laugh  at  him.  De  quoi  riez  vous, 
messieurs  ?"  said  the  unfortunate  man,  rubbing  his 
side  ;  •'  dans  ce  pays-ci  les  pauvres  gens  sont  toujours 
par  terre."  What  is  more — the  kind  of  wit  I  speak 
of  is  alive  even  at  a  nursery  age.  Monsieur  de  Segur 
tells  us  the  story  of  a  child  who,  being  present  at  the 
opera  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  was  asked  by  Prince  Henry 
of  Prussia  (brother  to  the  great  Frederic),  who  Castor 
and  Pollux  were.  "  They  are,"  said  the  child,  "  two 
twin  brothers  who  came  out  of  the  same  ^gg.^'' — "  But 
you,  you  came  out  of  an  %gg  yourself — did  not  you  V 
The  boy  immediately  said — 

"  Ma  naissance  n'a  rien  de  neuf, 
J'ai  suivi  la  commune  r^gle ; 
Mais  c'est  vous  qui  sortez  d'un  oeuf, 
Car  vous  etes — un  aigle." 

Certainly  we  cannot  find  little  children  quite  so  prompt 
or  so  poetical  as  Master  Sebran  every  day ;  but  even 
where  there  is  not  wit,  there  is  frequently  at  this 
tender  age  a  pretension  to  it — a  desire  to  astonish,  and 
to  produce  effect,  which  we  do  not  see  among  our  own 
maternal  progenies.  I  asked  two  little  village  boys, 
one  seven,  the  other  eight  years  old,  what  they  meant 
to  be  when  they  were  men  ?  Says  one,  "  I  shall  be 
the  doctor  of  the  village." — "And  you,  what  shall  you 
be  ?"  said  I  to  the  other.  "  Oh  !  if  brother's  a  doctor, 
10 


110  CHARACTERISTICS. 

I'll  be  cure.  He  shall  kill  the  people,  and  I'll  bury 
them — so  we  shall  have  the  whole  village  between  us." 
Any  one  who  takes  any  pains  to  examine  the  French 
language  will  see  the  reciprocal  effect  which  the  wit 
produced  upon  the  manners,  the  manners  upon  the  wit 
of  the  French.  No  sooner  was  society  formed,  and 
that  men  and  women,  according  to  modern  fashion, 
mixed  freely  together,  than  the  grace  which  succeeded 
best  in  society,  and  gave  the  admirer  the  fairest  chance 
with  his  mistress,  was  the  grace  of  conversation ; — 
that  happy  turn  and  choice  of  words,  that  brilliant  and 
piquant  "  setting"  of  ideas,  that  gay  and  lively  method 
of  being  satirical  and  serious,  which  had  been  brought 
to  such  perfection  at  the  time  of  the  revolution.  It 
had  been  brought  to  such  perfection,  because,  while  it 
was  decreed  the  charm  of  society,  society  was  the 
only  road  to  ambition.  The  man  of  ambition  and 
ability  then  went  to  a  "  soiree"  or  a  "  souper"  with 
the  same  intention  to  shine  by  his  wit  that  our  orators 
in  going  to  the  House  of  Commons  had  to  shine  by 
their  eloquence.  He  gave  that  attention  to  his  con- 
versation that  we  gave  J,o  our  discourses.  A  "  bon- 
mot"  was  likely  to  carry  a  man  as  far  in  one  country 
as  a  good  speech  would  in  another ;  and  the  position 
which  Pym  acquired  in  the  Long  Parliament  by  his 
orations,  De  la  Rochefoucauld  obtained  in  the  Fronde 
by  his  epigrams.  But  the  talent  so  cultivated  by  one 
sex  aspiring  to  power  was  just  the  talent  best  calcu- 
lated to  be  imitated  and  to  be  polished  by  that  other 
sex  which,  during  the  long  reign  of  royal  mistresses, 
had  the  faculty  of  giving  power.  The  women,  who 
mixed  with  the  wittiest  and  cleverest  men  of  their 
time,  became  themselves  clever  and  witty.  The  cour- 
tier and  the  "  courtesan"  formed  themselves  on  each 
other :  where  a  phrase  was  a  fortune,  a  thousand  re- 
markable phrases  were  made :  applauded,  circulated, 
they  became  popular  modes  of  expression.  In  this 
manner  the  language  was  perpetually  enriched :  in 
this  manner  it  took  its  epigrammatic  and  sententious 
form :  in  this  manner  it  became  such  a  collection  of 


WIT.  Ill 

witticisms,  that  to  talk  French  well  was  to  be  a  witty 
man.  Nor  was  this  without  its  advantages — for  in 
every  evil  there  is  implanted  a  germ  of  good,  tending 
to  its  correction  :  and  this  style  of  conversation,  sprung 
from  a  debauched  and  tyrannical  court,  became  in  time, 
as  Madame  de  Stael  has  shrewdly  observed,  a  power- 
ful substitute  for  the  liberty  of  the  press.  A  course 
of  events  which  brought  new  men  into  action,  and 
which  opened  for  politics  a  very  different  field  of  con- 
tention, has  produced  a  considerable  change  in  the 
language  of  the  writers  and  in  the  conversation  of  the 
society  of  Paris.  The  latter  has  even  lost  that  epi- 
grammatic tone  of  speaking,  that  dry  and  peculiar  in- 
flection of  the  voice,  formerly  general,  now  hardly 
preserved  by  any  but  by  M.  de  Talleyrand,  and  which, 
arising  from  the  habit  of  uttering  witticisms,  will  fre 
quently  by  itself  pass  for  wit :  but  yet  in  no  other 
society  does  one  hear  the  same  sharp  and  clever  hits, 
the  same  pointed  and  philosophic  aphorisms,  the  same 
happy  and  elegant  turns  of  expression,  that  one  even 
yet  meets  in  the  society  of  Paris.  So  much  for  con- 
versation— while  literature,  by  the  power,  the  pomp, 
and  ostentatious  expressions  that  it  has  acquired  of 
late  years  has  enriched,  but  not  lost,  its  ancient  genius. 
Wit  is  still  the  talent  which  in  every  department  has 
the  most  success — for  instance,  who  is  the  most  popu- 
lar prose  writer  of  the  modern  day*?  P.  Courier. 
Who  is  the  most  popular  poet  ?  Beranger.  Who  is 
the  most  popular  dramatist  ?  Scribe.  Who  is  the 
most  popular  orator  ?     M.  Thiers. 


112  CHAR  A  CTERISTICS. 


GAYETY  AND  FRIVOLITY. 

The  Place  de  Vendome  during  the  Regency  and  at  the  time  of  Law 
— The  calamities  of  that  time,  darkening  every  thing  else,  did  not 
darken  the  gayety  of  France — Saying  of  M.  de  Rennes — Is  gayety 
happiness  ? — Why  the  French  were  formerly  so  frivolous — Little 
change  in  manner  till  the  Restoration — Character  of  the  Directory 
— Aim  of  Bonaparte — Warlike  gayety  of  the  empire — The  return 
of  the  Bourbons— The  Constitutional  Government  established  the 
first  great  change — Tables  of  Dupin — The  French  character 
changed,  but  not  so  much  changed  as  he  would  infer — The  institu- 
tions of  a  country  cannot  change  its  former  character,  without  that 
character  operating  upon  existing  institutions — The  influence  of 
chmate  and  race — The  French,  if  they  do  preserve  a  constitution, 
will  still  be  gay — Wise  legislators  improve  what  is  good  rather 
than  -eradicate  what  is  bad  in  the  character  of  a  people — Montes- 
quieu in  one  extreme ;  Bentham  in  the  other. 

An  old  soldier  is  now  standing  by  the  column  of  the 
Place  de  Vendome,  and  the  carriage  of  a  Deputy  is 
traversing  the  square — the  carriage  rolls  along  quicldy, 
for  the  Deputy  expects  to  be  too  late  for  the  budget.  I 
think  I  could  paint  the  place  of  "  Louis  le  Grand"  in 
livelier  colours  : — Lo !  there  are  tents  :  not  the  tents 
of  war — the  canvass  is  too  white  and  delicate — There 
are  tents — beneath  the  canopy  of  which  you  will  find 
the  cups  of  Venice,  and  the  chains  of  Malta,  and  the 
cloths  of  Persia,  and  the  silks  of  Ind  ;  and  the  ave- 
nues between  are  soft  to  the  feet,  for  they  are  spread 
with  the  richest  and  most  moss-like  carpets,  and  at 
every  corner  you  are  offered  the  juice  of  the  orange 
and  the  citron  ;  and  if  your  pulse  flag  it  may  be  stimu- 
lated by  the  vintage  of  Champagne,  and  if  your  lip 
be  feverish  it  may  be  cooled  by  the  ice  of  the  Pyre- 
nees ;  and  by  night  and  by  day  the  musician,  and  the 
courtesan,  and  the  juggler  forbid  the  festivity  to  re- 
pose ;  and  the  gay  "  seigneurs"  and  the  gentle  and 
graceful  ladies  of  the  riotous  court  of  France  form 
part  of  the  many-coloured    group  which,   reader,   I 


GAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITY.  113 

would  bring  before  you !  What  is  the  business  for 
which  these  tents  are  pitched  ? — what  cause  has  col- 
lected this  crowd  of  musicians,  courtesans,  and  jug- 
glers?— and  why  are  the  great  ladies  and  the  high 
dignitaries,  who  in  days  of  state  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
royal  chambers  of  the  regent,  among  the  indolent 
loungers  and  the  noisy  speculators  of  yon  unhallowed 
place  1  Yea,  speculators — for  that  scene,  gay  and 
brilliant  as  it  appears  to  you,  is  the  sombre  and  fatal 
spot  from  which  bankruptcy  is  departing  to  every  cor- 
ner of  the  kingdom :  it  is  there  that,  already  degraded 
by  a  frantic  avarice,  a  once  chivalric  people — amid  all 
the  symbols  of  mirth  and  wealth,  and  flushed  with  the 
shameful  passions  of  the  Stock  Exchange* — are  wit- 
nessing, like  the  Hunchback's  brother  in  the  Arabian 
story,  the  transformation  of  their  gold  into  dry  and 
withered  leaves,  which  the  wind,  as  so  many  signs 
and  tokens  of  an  avenging  Providence,  will  soon 
scatter  over  the  most  fertile  provinces  of  France. 
Thus  was  it :  but  the  nation  had  not  merely  to  regret 
its  gold  ;'--the  honour,  which  Montesquieu  calls  *'  the 
education  of  a  monarchy,"  and  which,  of  such  a  mon- 
archy as  that  of  the  French,  was  the  vital  principle, 
the  only  moral  and  enduring  force — that  honour  sunk 
beneath  the  projects  of  Law,  and  the  sentiment — 
which  was  the  fortune  of  the  ancient  regime — never 
ceased  to  languish  after  being  exposed  to  the  infection 
which  breathed  amid  the  flowers  and  the  festivities  of 
that  voluptuous  and  terrible  bazar. 

So  much  for  ancient  France — for  France  during  the 
elegant  reign  of  tyranny  and  pleasure.  So  much  for 
France  when  she  was  careless  and  gay  in  all  times  and 
in  all  places  ;  treating  the  lightest  matters  with  an  air 
of  importance,  the  gravest  with  a  passion  for  amuse- 
ment. So  much  for  France  with  her  joyous  dance 
and  her  dark  Bastille,  her  bankrupt  exchequer  and  her 

*  During  the  infatuation  of  Law,  and  tov/ards  its  decline,  "  the 
Btock  exchange,"  to  use  a  modem  term,  was  transferred  from  the 
Rue  Quincampoix  to  the  Place  de  Vendome,  which  exhibited  a 
scene  similar  to  that  I  have  painted. 
10* 


114  CHARACTERISTICS. 

shameless  court.  Then  was  the  moment  to  have 
known  her  !  Then  \vas  the  moment  to  have  known 
her — if  you  wish  to  have  known  a  country  which, 
ah'eady  bound  to  the  aUar,  was  decorated  with  the 
garlands  of  the  victim.  Then  was  there  wit  and 
gayety,  but  neither  virtue,  nor  character,  nor  greatness. 
The  majesty  of  the  monarchy  had  followed  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  nobility — both  were  gone.  The  mar- 
tial enterprise  of  the  League  no  longer  mingled  with 
the  masked  debauch — a  cold  system  of  licentiousness 
had  succeeded  the  valiant  follies  of  the  French. 
Dead  was  the  chivalry  of  that  intoxicating  time,  when 
the  smile  of  beauty  was  the  graceful  incentive  to  re- 
bellion ;  when  the  conflict  was  sought  rather  to  vary 
the  amusements  of  society  than  to  change  the  des- 
tinies of  the  people  ;  while  the  art  of  the  Roman  gladi- 
ator rose  to  its  perfection,  and  death  was  studied  for 
the  purpose  of  dying — in  an  agreeable  position.  The 
reign  of  the  regent  emasculated  the  character,  chilled 
the  enthusiasm,  blunted  the  honour — but,  black  as  were 
the  wings  of  pestilence  and  ruin,  it  did  not  for  an 
instant  darken  the  gayety  of  the  French.  Amid  all 
her  changes,  that  gayety  remained  the  characteristic 
of  olden  France,  and  with  that  gayety  there  was  a 
frivolity,  a  light  and  frivolous  air,  which  set  naturally 
on  the  philosopher  as  on  the  fop — which  was  in  man- 
ners even  where  it  was  not  in  ideas — which  was  on 
the  surface  of  society  where  it  was  not  at  the  core. 
Never  was  France  more  gay  than  when  our  graceful 
and  plaintive  poet*  wandered  with  his  pipe  by  the 
banks  of  the  Loire.     But  are  gayety  and  happiness 

terms  necessarily  synonymous  ? 

Madame  de  Sevigne  gives  us  her  conversation  with 
a  certain  M.  de  Rennes,  who  did  not  choose  to  trim 
his  beard  until  a  trial  which  affected  him  was  decided. 
"I  should  be  a  great  fool,"  said  the  gentleman,  "to 
take  any  pains  about  my  head  until  I  know  whom  it 
belongs  to.     The  king  disputes  it  with  me ;  when  I 

*  Goldsmith. 


GAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITV.  115 

know  whose  head  it  is,  then  indeed,  if  it  be  my  head, 
I'll  take  care  of  it."  Now,  the  uncertainty  which  M. 
de  Rennes  felt  about  his  head  was  just  that  uncertainty 
which  the  French,  during  the  days  of  the  Bastille,  felt 
about  their  understanding,  and  which  made  them  neg- 
lect the  cultivation  of  its  more  stern  and  bold  and 
masculine  characteristics.  The  right  to  exercise  those 
higher  faculties  which,  so  far  from  withdrawing  us 
from  happiness,  are  generally  devoted  to  the  study  of 
how  happiness,  in  its  more  comprehensive  sense,  may 
best  be  procured — the  right  to  exercise  those  faculties 
was  almost  prohibited  by  not  being  defined.  Much  lib- 
erty of  opinion  was  exercised,  undoubtedly,  by  a  few 
men  in  the  eighteenth  century,  whose  influence  was 
the  greater  from  the  novelty  of  the  task  they  under- 
took. But  of  these  men,  the  most  exalted  passed 
many  of  his  years  in  exile ;  nor  let  it  be  forgotten, 
that  it  was  to  the  composition  of  a  bad  opera  that  the 
moralist  of  Geneva  owed  his  most  signal  and  perhaps 
his  most  gratifying  success.  Voltaire,  the  wit,  th^ 
poet,  the  cynic,  was  also  as  eminently  courtier,  and 
aimed  his  shafts  against  the  throne,  the  aristocracy, 
and  the  altar,  under  the  shelter  of  royal  correspond- 
ences and  courtly  friendships  ;  the  most  popular 
writer  of  the  day,  because  he  was  the  least  pedantic 
— the  deep  portent  of  his  thoughts  was  passed  by  on 
account  of  the  grace  and  gayety  with  which  he  de- 
livered them ;  and  princes  had  the  "  good  taste"  to 
pardon  the  popular  principles  of  a  philosopher,  who 
preached  with  the  easy  sprightliness  of  a  page.  The 
only  grave  career,  during  the  old  monarchy,  was — the 
church :  and  so  the  only  men  of  commanding  capacity 
who  appeared  at  that  time  appeared  in  the  uniform  of 
Rome.  But  the  road  even  to  clerical  honours  lay 
through  the  boudoirs  of  the  court :  and  the  proud  and 
stately  Richelieu  is  said  to  have  danced  in  a  harle- 
quin's costume  before  Anne  of  Austria — in  the  vain 
attempt  to  gain  the  favours  of  that  haughty  princess. 
*'  Eu  Espagne,"  said  a  French   philosopher   of  the 


116  CHARACTERISTICS. 

eighteenth  century,*  "  En  Espagne  ondemande — est — ■ 
ce  un  grand  de  la  premiere  classe  ?  En  Allemagne — 
peut-il  entrer  dans  les  chapitres  ?  En  France — est — il 
bien  a  la  cour  ?  En  Angleterre — Quel  homme  est-il  ?" 
England  was  then  the  only  country  in  which  a  man 
was  valued  for  himself;  because  England  was  the 
only  country  at  that  time  m  which  a  man  who  pos- 
sessed the  advantages  which  placed  him  in  a  public 
career  could  seize,  command,  and  hold,  without  the 
aid  and  assistance  of  any  one,  a  situation  measured 
by  his  own  abilities.  The  more  lofty,  and  independent, 
and  grave  pursuits  were  those  which  led  to  the  high- 
est honours  and  the  greatest  esteem  ;  and  this  gave  a 
lofty  and  independent  air,  a  more  than  natural  gravity, 
to  the  grave  and  serious  character  of  our  people. 
The  objects  of  ambitious  men  were  the  same  in  France 
and  in  England — power  and  distinction.  Ambitious 
men  know  no  other  objects  :  but  the  paths  which  led 
to  these  objects  were  different — different  in  a  manner 
which  rendered  the  grave  and  serious  people  more 
grave  and  serious,  and  the  gay  and  frivolous  people 
more  gay  and  frivolous.  One  ceases  to  be  astonished 
at  the  importance  which  Louis  XIV.  gave  to  the  ar- 
rangement of  a  cotillon,  as  one  remembers  that  he 
was  regulating  the  political  career  of  his  court — "  So- 
ciety," as  I  have  said  in  the  preceding  chapter,  "  was 
at  that  time  the  road  to  ambition,"  and  all  the  gayeties 
and  graces  of  society  were  studied,  as  wit  more  espe- 
cially was  studied,  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  being  ami- 
able in  the  world,  but  for  the  sake  of  rising  in  it. 

"  Ce  jeune  homme  ira  loin !"  said  an  old  "  marquis" 
in  the  latter  days  of  Louis  XIV.,  "  ses  manieres  sont 
parfaites  et  il  danse  fort  bien."  This  was  the  court — 
the  resort  of  noble  adventurers,  avid  of  fortune  and  hon- 
ours, w^hich  were  only  to  be  obtained  by  the  smile  of 
the  sovereign  ;  a  smile  which  was  very  frequently  th© 
simple  reflection  of  that  to  be  solicited  from  the  sove- 
reign's mistress.     This  was  the  court — and  the  capital 

*  Helvetius. 


UAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITY  1  17 

imitated  tlie  court,  and  chose  their  magistrates  for 
their  manners  ;  and  the  provinces  imitated  the  capital, 
and  voted  the  most  money  to  the  governors  who  gave 
them  the  best  balls.*  But  if  one  class  was  gay  and 
frivolous,  very  frequently  as  the  best  means  of  obtain- 
ing power,  another  was  equally  frivolous  and  gay  be- 
cause it  had  no  means  of  obtaining  it.  The  richer 
persons  indeed  engaged  in  commerce,  the  middle  or- 
ders, as  we  should  call  them,  the  close  of  whose  career 
was  to  be  the  purchase  of  "  a  charge" — (the  first  step 
towards  the  nobility  of  their  grandsons) — these,  as  I 
think  I  have  elsewhere  observed,  were  of  a  graver 
aspect,  and  more  demure  demeanour — they  felt  them- 
selves obliged  to  be  respectable,  because  they  were  not 
noble.  But  the  lowest  and  the  highest  of  society,  the 
"  quality"  and  the  "  canaille,"  gave  themselves  up 
alike,  heart  and  soul,  to  amusement ;  the  only  differ- 
ence being  that  the  one  sought  pleasure  because  they 
were  shut  out  from  business,  the  other  because  plea- 
sure was,  in  fact,  to  them  a  business. 

From  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  up  to  the  restoration, 
the  public  events  of  the  time,  great  as  they  were, 
hardly  penetrated  into  private  life :  manners  altered 
less  than  one  might  suppose :  the  actors  who  took  a 
part  in  society  were  new;  the  drama  was  almost  the 
same.  If  the  court  of  the  Luxembourg  were  more  vul- 
gar, it  was  not  less  frivolous  and  voluptuous,  than  that 
of  Versailles ;  nor  was  Louis  XV.  himself  more  ac- 
cessible to  female  influence  than  the  citizen  Barras. 
As  for  Napoleon,  his  policy  was  to  revive  the  memory 
of  Louis  XIV.  The  maxims  of  that  reign,  "  qu'il  fal- 
lait  mettre  dans  les  vertus  une  certaine  noblesse,  dans 
les  moeurs  une  certaine  franchise,  dans  les  manieres 
une  certaine  politesse,"t — the  maxims  which  the  great 
philosopher  of  France  deemed  necessary  to  keep  toge- 
ther the  elements  of  the  old  monarchy,  and  which 
were  equally  calculated  to  preserve  the  military  em- 
pire, came  again  into  vogue  :  to  elevate  the  dignity  of 
the  court — to  dazzle  and  deceive  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
*  Madame  de  Sevign^,  t  Montesquieu. 


118  CHARACTERISTICS. 

pie — to  raise  a  prestige  round  the  throne — (fortune  was 
to  take  the  place  of  legitimacy) — to  repair  the  old 
system  with  new  materials,  and  thus  to  preserve  the 
ancient  manners  ; — this  was  the  policy  of  the  first  con- 
sul ;  a  policy  which  he  openly  commenced  by  assum- 
ing the  imperial  garment,  and  as  openly  consummated 
by  allying  himself  to  the  house  of  Hapsbourg.  The 
lower  classes  of  the  people  were  to  be  pleased  witl' 
his  government  for  its  fetes  ;  the  higher  to  be  attached 
to  his  person  by  rewards.  The  sterner  motives  of 
individual  action,  and  the  sterner  careers  that  belong 
to  them,  were  closed :  a  man  was  nothing  by  himself, 
the  emperor's  favour  made  him  all ;  and  for  the  excel- 
lent reason  therefore  given  by  Monsieur  de  Rennes  at 
the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  he  had  all  that  gayety 
and  frivolity  which  springs  from  the  carelessness  of  an 
uncertain  and  dependent  and  ill-regulated  existence. 
And  now,  while  the  luxury,  and  the  amusements,  and 
the  despotism  of  the  empire  kept  up  among  the  people 
the  joyous  and  unthinking  character  of  olden  times,  its 
perils  and  its  victories  gave  to  the  gayety  of  this  adven- 
turous epoch  a  martial  air,  which  sat  not  ungracefully 
on  a  nation  of  warriors,  descendants  of  the  soldiers  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  themselves  the  conquerors  of  almost 
every  capital  in  Europe. 

In  the  movement  and  bustle  of  those  days,  when 
events  marched  with  a  velocity  that  made,  what  we 
counted  as  seventeen  years,  an  age  for  history  and 
posterity ;  in  that  busy  and  brilliant  time,  when  in  every 
street  you  heard  the  crying  of  the  bulletin,  and  the 
beating  of  the  drum — and  existence  was  a  dream  of 
arms,  and  uniforms,  and  decorations ;  then  the  song 
accompanied  the  soldier  to  the  bivouac  ;*  by  the  affec- 
tionate "  sobriquet"  which  he  gave  to  his  captain  ("  le 
petit  caporal"),  the  conscript  recompensed  himself  for 
the  fatigues  of  the  campaign  ;   and  long  after  the  des- 

*  There  is  a  poet,  the  soldier-like  gayety  of  whose  genius  entitles 
him  to  be  the  chronicler  of  that  period ;  and  as  one  of  the  many 
curious  spectacles  of  our  time,  we  see  a  republican  bard  chariting 
the  gayety  and  the  glories  of  a  military  tyraimy,  under  the  aegis  of 
that  constitutional  hbertv  whose  moderation  he  despised. 


OAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITY.  119 

potism  ;iiid  selfishness  of  Bonaparte  hnd  become  visible 
to  the  nation,  in  the  camp  he  was  still  beloved.  But 
no  man,  as  the  philosopher  said  to  Cra3sus,  knows  his 
fortune  until  his  death.*  It  was  with  a  spirit  of  pro- 
phecy that  Verniaud  spoke  of  the  revolution  of  1789  as 
"  Saturn  devouring  his  ofTspring."  The  empire  fell  in 
its  turn,  as  had  successively  fallen  every  system  to 
which  that  powerful  struggle  between  intelligence  and 
ignorance  had  given  birth :  the  empire  fell— the  Bour- 
bons returned  to  their  ancient  palace  ;  and  the  temple 
which  had  been  dedicated  "to  glory"!  was  conse- 
crated "  to  religion" — and  the  palace  of  Bonaparte's 
senate  was  occupied  by  the  Deputies  of  France. 

This  change  was  the  greatest  that  had  yet  taken 
place  in  the  fate  of  the  nation,  and  was  the  most  likely 
to  exercise  an  influence  over  its  character.  For  the 
first  time  for  centuries  the  Frenchman  ceased  to  be  a 
gambler  or  solicitor  after  honours  ;  his  existence  no 
longer  depended  upon  a  lucky  hit  or  a  dexterous  appli- 
cation ;  with  ability  and  attention  he  might  almost  cal- 
culate— -and  there  is  great  force  in  that  word — he  might 
almost  calculate  upon,  regularly  rising  to  the  first  place 
in  the  state,  and  being  illustrated  by  the  opinion  of  his 
fellow-countrymen.  The  career  to  which  ambition 
now  called  him  was  one  of  a  solid  and  serious  char- 
acter, and  required  time  and  perseverance  as  the  ne- 
cessities of  success.     Nor  was  the  effect  which  this 


*  There  are  few  subjects  which  caused  more  trouble  and  per- 
turbation during  the  middle  ages  than  the  corpse  of  St.  Denis.  No 
sooner  did  one  monastery  boast  itself  in  quiet  possession  of  this  in- 
valuable relic,  than  it  was  indignantly  answered  by  another ;  and,  as 
is  usually  the  case,  the  last  having  the  best  of  the  dispute,  the  faithful 
always  flocked  to  the  shrine  of  the  new  pretendant.  At  last,  how- 
ever, a  corpse  was  found  which,  to  use  the  words  of  the  Chronicle, 
was  "  envelope  en  un  drap  de  sole,  si  viel,  et  porri  que  il  s'evanouis- 
sait  et  devenait  poudre ;"  and  it  was  determined,  according  to  custom, 
that  this  was  the  veritable  body  of  St.  Denis — so  the  "  Comit6  de  salut 
Public,"  the  Directory,  the  consulate,  the  empire,  all  in  turn  enjoyed 
a  glorious  reputation  for  the  sanctity  of  their  origin ;  but  in  the  year 
1814,  the  persons  who  happened  to  be  most  powerful  declared,  under 
circumstances  very  similar  to  those  I  have  narrated,  that  the  true  St. 
Denis  was  at  last  discovered,  and  f^tesand  fireworks  commemorated 
the  event  of  the  restoration, 
t  The  Madeleine. 


120  CHARACTERISTICS. 

was  likely  to  have  upon  the  national  character  merely 
confined  to  those  who  aspired  to  the  eminent  situation 
of  which  I  speak ;  a  representative  government  has 
this  advantage,  viz.  that  it  spreads  over  the  whole 
country  those  virtues  and  those  talents  which  are  re- 
quired in  the  representative  assembly.  The  man  who 
IS  asked  to  choose  a  person  to  represent  his  interests 
naturally  begins  to  reflect  on  what  his  interests  are, 
and  the  qualities  for  which  he  selects  another  become 
the  qualities  which  he  himself  is  anxious  to  possess. 
This  effect,  natural  under  any  circumstance  to  a  repre- 
sentative government,  would  develop  itself  of  course 
more  forcibly  and  more  rapidly  where  a  free  press  was 
daily  publishing  the  debates  of  the  representatives, 
and  commenting,  with  all  the  facility  and  all  the  inge- 
nuity with  which  men  not  engaged  in  affairs  can  criti- 
cise the  actions  of  those  who  are,  upon  every  word 
and  every  syllable  that  fell  from  the  national  tribune. 

Causes  like  these  could  not  be  in  operation  for  six- 
teen years  without,  in  some  degree,  producing  the  con- 
sequence to  be  expected,  viz.  that  of  infusing  a  more 
grave  and  masculine  character  into  the  society,  which, 
still  sensible  to  pleasure,  was  less  able  to  unite  it  with 
politics  and  ambition. 

By  the  table  of  Monsieur  Dupin,  published  in  1828, 
the  change  I  speak  of  appears.  Compare  the  publica- 
tions of  1812,  1820,  1826;  you  will  find  that  the 
kingdom  of  France,  reduced  within  its  ancient  limits, 
published  twice  as  many  works  as  the  empire  did  at 
the  moment  of  its  widest  extent ;  and  remark !  that 
while  in  every  class  of  publication  there  is  a  consider- 
able increase  ;  remark !  as  the  most  important  fact  of 
all,  that  the  increase  is  far  greater  in  those  produc- 
tions the  object  of  which  is  to  improve  the  mind,  than 
in  those  that  are  composed  with  the  simple  desire  to 
amuse  it.  That  part  of  literature  consecrated  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  imagination,  and  which  held  the  first 
rank  in  the  empire,  held  the  second  under  the  consti- 
tution, and  gave  place  to  history,  voyages,  and  biogra- 
phy ;  while  the  writings  dedicated  to  the  study  and 


GAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITY.  121 


knowledge  of  the  laws  advanced  in  popularity  and 
consideration.  "  Ainsi,"  says  Monsieur  Dupin,  "  par 
I'heureux  efFet  de  nos  institutions  les  gouts  de  la  France 
ont  perdu  de  la  frivolite.  Les  etudes  graves  ont  gagne  : 
la  litterature  philosophique — I'etude  de  la  jurisprudence 
et  des  lois — la  meditation  de  I'histoire — Fobservation, 
la  comparaison  des  moeurs  et  des  costumes — les  pro- 
ductions de  ^'art  et  de  la  nature  qui  caracterisent  les 
nations  contemporaines  et  les  contrees  qu'elles  habi- 
tent. — Voila  les  objets  principaux  vers  lesquels  s'est 
dirige  I'esprit  de  la  nation  Fran9aise."  The  able 
writer  whom  I  cite  is  rather  too  apt  to  overcharge  his 
pictures  with  the  colour  that  momentarily  predomi- 
nates in  his  mind.  The  French,  during  the  restora- 
tion, lost  a  little  of  their  gayety,  more  of  their  frivolity : 
but  the  change  has  certainly  not  been  so  great  as  Mon- 
sieur Dupin  would  give  us  to  understand ;  nor  must 
we  entirely  forget,  w^hen  we  reckon  among  our  proofs 
of  an  increasing  seriousness  of  disposition,  an  increase 
in  the  sale  of  more  serious  literary  productions,  that 
these  productions  have  themselves  of  late  years  become 
more  light  and  more  amusing.  There  are  many  cir- 
cumstances still  active  in  conserving  that  gay,  and  joy- 
ful, and  frivolous  character,  for  which  the  French  were 
formerly  distinguished.  The  influence  of  youth,  the 
influence  of  women,  at  once  causes  and  effects  of  a 
peculiar  disposition  and  a  peculiar  state  of  society, 
are  among  the  principal  of  these ;  nor,  while  we  esti- 
mate the  consequences  of  the  representative  institu- 
tions of  France,  are  we  to  forget,  that  out  of  thirty-three 
millions  of  individuals  there  are  only  two  hundred 
thousand  directly  affected  by  them. 

Again,  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  institutions  of 
a  country  are  to  change  the  former  character  of  its 
people,  without  that  former  character  having  a  great 
influence  upon  its  existing  institutions  ;  and,  as  the  nat- 
ural condition  of  many  political  vicissitudes,  we  must 
long  expect  to  see  the  French  nation  exposed  to  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  the  habits  it  derived  from  a 
despotic  government,  with  those  which  are  resulting 

Vol.  I.— F  U 


122  CHARACTERISTICS. 

from  a  free  constitution.  The  very  language  which 
has  descended  from  generation  to  generation,  as  the 
expression  of  certain  habits  and  ideas,  exercises,  in  its 
turn,  a  daily  recurring  influence  which  no  laws  or  trea- 
tises can  efface — and  the  sky,  and  the  climate,  and  the 
natural  disposition — I  grant  that  the  philosophers  were 
wrong  who  preached  that  the  governments  of  nations 
depended  wholly  upon  these — but  rely  upon  it  also, 
that  they  must  have  their  influence,  that  we  cannot 
arbitrarily  give  ourselves  the  institutions  and  the  habits 
that  we  please  ;  rely  upon  it,  that  man  does  not  wholly 
depend  upon  man ;  but  that  nature  and  God  have  an 
influence,  difficult  to  trace,  but  impossible  to  deny,  in 
the  destinies  of  every  people  upon  earth ! 

Years  then  may  roll  on,  and  the  light  and  joyous 
character  of  the  French,  already  changed,  may  undergo 
further  changes.  The  sedater  character  which  has 
seated  itself  upon  the  front  of  society  may  penetrate 
nearer  to  its  heart ;  the  greater  seriousness  which  we 
observe  spread  over  certain  classes  of  the  nation  may 
have  a  broader  basis  and  a  deeper  root ;  years  may 
roll  on — and  that  august  edifice  which  you  see  on  the 
borders  of  the  Seine  may  still  resound  with  the  elo- 
quence of  the  constitutional  tribune ;  years  may  roll 
on — and  the  gates  of  the  pantheon  yet  be  open  to  the 
ashes  of  the  senators  who  have  merited  well  of  their 
country ; — all  this  may  be  ;  and  yet,  as  long  as  the  gay 
sun  which  is  now  shining  gilds  the  yellow  valleys  of 
Provence,  and  ripens  the  purple  vintage  of  Burgundy 
and  Champagne — so  long  mvist  much  that  we  see  now 
— much  of  that  which  belongs  to  the  unthinking  and 
joyous  spirit  which  coloured  the  religion,  the  policy, 
the  triumphs  of  the  olden  time — which  entered  into 
the  church,  the  palace,  and  the  camp — brightening, 
corrupting,  enlivening — making  things  worse,  and  ren- 
dering them  more  tolerable — much  of  this  must  yet 
remain ;  nor  until  you  can  make  their  skies  and  their 
soil,  their  climate  and  their  clouds  alike,  need  you 
believe  that  the  same  laws  will  produce  the  same 
effects  upon  a  race,  vowed  to  labour,  repudiating  recre- 
ation, fanatical  in  business,  politics,  and  religion — and 


GAYETY    AND    FRIVOLITY.  123 

upon  the  careless,  incredulous,  gallant,  active,  intelli- 
gent, philosophic,  and  joyous  people  whom  I  am  con- 
templating as  I  guide  my  pen  along  this  paper.  Pro- 
crustes had  a  bed  of  iron,  on  which  we  know  he  was 
so  obliging  as  to  lit  all  travellers  whom  he  caught,  by 
dislocating  the  limbs  of  those  who  were  too  short,  and 
chopping  off  the  members  of  those  who  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  be  too  tall ;  in  this  manner  he  arranged 
every  one  according  to  his  model.  I  am  not  of  the 
philosophy  of  Procrustes  ;  I  am  for  giving  intelligence 
to  all — it  is  the  soil  of  liberty — the  soil  from  which 
the  tree  should  spring — but  I  am  not  for  torturing  its 
growth  or  twisting  its  branches  into  any  fantastic 
symmetry  of  my  own.  Let  it  grow  from  the  habits, 
the  manners,  the  customs  amid  which  it  rises — let  it 
freely  take  its  form !  I  do  not  expect  that  form  to  be 
without  defects  :  I  am  satisfied  if  these  defects  are  not 
great  ones.  I  do  not  wish  one  nation  to  be  austere, 
because  I  find  austerity  coupled  with  virtue  in  another ; 
nor  do  I  look  with  contempt  upon  the  frivolities  which 
I  see  accompanied  by  a  certain  enthusiasm  and  a  cer- 
tain grandeur.  The  wisest  legislators,  instead  of  en- 
deavouring to  eradicate  what  is  bad  from  the  character 
of  a  people,  devote  themselves  to  the  improvement  of 
what  is  good.  "  If  there  be  a  nation  in  the  world," 
says  the  French  philosopher,  "  which  possesses  a  so- 
cial humour,  an  open  heart,  a  disposition  tuned  to  joy, 
a  correct  taste,  a  facility  in  expressing  its  ideas — if 
there  be  a  nation  lively,  agreeable,  jovial,  sometimes 
imprudent,  often  indiscreet,  and  which  withal  has 
courage,  generosity,  frankness,  honour — beware  how 
you  attempt  to  set  a  bridle  upon  its  manners,  lest  you 
also  subdue  its  virtues.  If  in  general  the  character  be 
good,  what  signify  a  few  defects  ?  It  would  not  be 
difficult  to  restrain  the  women,  to  make  laws  to  correct 
their  morals,  and  to  moderate  their  luxury,  but  who 
knows  if  we  should  not  thereby  dry  up  the  source  of 
the  riches,  and  destroy  the  charm,  of  the  nation.  The 
legislator  should  follow  the  spirit  of  the  people :  we 
do  nothing  so  well  as  that  which  we  do  hardily  and 
F2 


124  CHARACTERISTICS 

freely.  If  you  give  an  air  of  pedantry  to  a  nation  na- 
turally gay<  the  state  will  gain  nothing.*  '  Ni  pour  le 
dedans,  ni  pour  le  dehors — Laissez  lui  faire  les  choses 
frivoles  serieusement,  et  gaimentles  choses  serieuses!'" 
The  maxims  of  Montesquieu,  almost  incompatible  with 
change,  are  erroneous  in  one  extreme  ;  the  philosophy 
of  Benthara,  with  set  and  universal  forms  for  every 
change,  is  equally  erroneous  in  the  other. 


CRIME. 

Let  us  look  for  the  character  we  have  remarked  in  the  pleasures  of  the 
French  m  their  crimes — Write  to  advance  no  dogma — M.  Guerry's 
vv^ork — Table  of  crimes  in  each  of  the  five  districts  into  w^hich  he 
has  divided  France — The  most  singular  calculation  that  ever  yet 
appeared — What  law,  what  chance,  what  instruction  has  to  do 
with  it — What  influences  are  visible  upon  crime — The  climate 
and  the  seasons — Influence  of  age,  of  sex — Motives  for  crime — 
Natural  children — Suicides — Writings  of  persons  having  com- 
mitted suicide — What  M.  Guerry's  tables  teach,  always  taught — 
Return  to  investigation  set  out  with — How  far  is  the  gallantry,  the 
vanity,  and  frivolity  of  the  French  connected  with  their  crimes  ? — 
Having  spoken  of  the  character,  proceed  to  speak  of  the  history  of 
the  French. 

I  AM  arrived  at  a  place  where  I  would  wish  to  cast 
my  eye  back  over  the  chapters  I  have  just  concluded. 
The  French,  it  appears,  are  gay,  gallant,  witty,  vain. 

*  "  S'il  y  avait  dans  le  monde  une  nation  qui  eut  une  humeur 
sociale,  une  ouverture  de  coeur,  une  joie  dans  la  vie,  un  gout,  une 
facilite  a  communiquer  ses  pensees ;  qui  fut  vive,  agreable,  enjouee, 
quelque  fois  imprudente,  souvent  indiscrete,  et  qui  eut  avec  cela  du 
courage,  de  la  generosite,de  la  franchise,  un  certain  point  d'honneur, 
il  ne  faudrait  point  chercher  h  gener  ses  manieres,  pour  ne  point 
g^ner  ses  vertus  ;  si  en  general  le  caract^re  est  bon,  qu'importe  de 
quelques  defauts  qui  s'y  trouvent  ?  On  y  pourrait  contenir  les 
femmes,  faire  des  lois  pour  corriger  leurs  moeurs  et  borner  leur  hixe  ; 
mais  qui  sait  si  on  n'y  perdrait  pas  un  certain  gout  qui  serait  la 
source  des  richesses  de  la  nation?  C'est  au  legislateur  a  suivre 
I'esprit  de  la  nation  lorsqu'il  n'est  pas  contraire  au  principe  du  gou- 
vernement ;  car  nous  ne  fesons  rien  de  mieux  que  ce  que  nous  fesons 
librement,  et  en  suivant  notre  genie  naturel.  Qu'on  donne  un  esprit 
de  pedanterie  a  une  nation  naturellement  gaie,  I'etat  n'y  gagnera 
rien,  ni  pour  Le  dedans  ni  pour  le  dehors." 


CRIME.  125 

We  have  seen  them  in  their  amusements — we  have 
followed  them  to  the  ball-room,  and  the  guinguette,  and 
the  theatre ;  the  gloomy  avenue  now  before  us  leads 
to — the  prison.  We  have  discovered  this  people's 
character  in  their  pleasures,  let  us  look  for  it  in  their 
crimes  ! 

Now,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  what  1  have  already 
said,  it  seems  justifiable  to  believe,  that  there  are  cer- 
tain qualities,  propensities,  and  passions  which,  char- 
acterizing one  people  from  another,  will  wind  them- 
selves into  all  our  legislative  enactments.  Moreover, 
if  the  book  I  am  writing  has  any  merit,  it  is  that  of 
being  written  without  the  object  of  advancing  any 
legislative  dogma  of  my  own.  Every  person  living  and 
reading  at  the  present  time  must  remember  an  infini- 
tude of  forced  systems  in  economy,  politics,  and 
morals,  each  in  their  turn  giving  place  to  some  new 
system,  which,  appearing  last,  has,  like  the  rod  of 
Moses,  devoured  the  rods  of  the  Egyptians. 

I  cannot  think,  with  one  of  the  most  strange  and 
positive  of  modern  speculators,*  that  the  sea  is  rapidly 
becoming  lemonade,  and  that  nature  has  in  her  wisdom 
reserved  a  tailed  appendix  to  future  generations : 
neither  am  I,  for  similar  scruples,  disposed  to  credit 
that  the  many  tribes  of  the  world  are  endowed  with 
precisely  the  same  dispositions,  and  to  be  fitted,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  by  precisely  the  same  governments 
and  institutions.  The  various  nostrums  which  have  in 
turn  been  promulgated  as  certain  specifics  for  our  vari- 
ous civil  disorders,  were  about  as  likely  to  be  uniformly 
efficacious  as  those  balsams,  cordials,  and  sudorifics 
which  medicine  daily  ofiers  to  our  corporeal  infirmities, 
as  equally  adapted  to  the  stone,  the  gravel,  and  the 
gout.  Looking  rather  at  the  effects  which  have  been 
produced  by  your  state-pharmacopolists,  than  at  the 
pompous  puffs  with  which  they  have  usually  announced 
themselves,  I  do  confess  that  I  somewhat  incline  to 

*  M.  Fourrier  de  Dijon,  the  founder  of  the  Phalansterian  sect,  of 
which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  v/hen  I  speak  of  the  modem 
philosophy  of  France. 


126  CHARACTERISTICS. 

the  belief  that  each  race  and  each  country  has  pecu- 
liarities almost  impossible  to  eradicate,  and  which 
therefore  it  is  wiser  in  the  legislator,  instead  of  fruit- 
lessly attempting  to  destroy,  sagaciously  to  endeavour 
to  direct.  But  this  theory  requires  a  perpetual  atten- 
tion to  what  is  passing  around,  and  to  what  has  passed 
before  us — a  perpetual  accumulation  of  knowledge, 
and  perpetual  variations  in  the  application  of  know- 
ledge ;  and  I  do  not  therefore  marvel  at  finding  it  less 
popular  than  the  doctrines  of  that  easier  school,  which 
in  twenty  pages  gives  all  that  it  is  possible  to  know 
for  the  government  and  the  happiness  of  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth. 

I  am  led  to  these  reflections  by  a  new  statistical 
work  by  M.  Guerry,*  a  work  remarkable  on  many  ac- 
counts, more  especially  remarkable  on  this  account — 
that  it  bowls  down  at  once  all  the  ninepins  with  which 
late  statists  had  been  amusing  themselves,  and  sets  up 
again  many  of  the  old  notions,  which  from  their  very 
antiquity  were  out  of  vogue. 

Some  very  wise  persons  have  declared  that  crimes 
depended  wholly  upon  laws ;  others  that  they  depended 
wholly  upon,  what  they  called,  instruction ;  while  a 
few,  with  a  still  falser  philosophy,  have  passed,  in  their 
contempt  for  all  existing  rules,  from  the  niceties  of  cal- 
culation to  the  vagueness  of  accident,  and  insinuated, 
not  daring  to  assert,  that  vice  and  virtue  are  the  mere 
"  rouge  et  noir"  of  life,  the  pure  effects  of  chance  and 
hazard.  Against  all  these  champions  M.  Guerry 
enters  the  field.     Dividing  France  into  five  regions^  or 

*  Statistique  morale  de  la  France. 

f  DIVISION    OF    FRANCE    INTO    FIVE    REGIONS. 

Population. 

North. — Aisne,  Ardennes,  Calvados,  Eure,  Manche, 
Marne,  Meuse,  Moselle,  Nord,  Oise,  Orne,  Pas-de- 
Calais,  Seine,  Seine  Inferieure,  Seine  et  Marne,  Seine 
et  Oise,  Somme 8,757,700 

South. — Ardfeche,  Arriege,  Aude,  Aveyron,  Bouclies  du 
Rhone,  Gard,  Haute-Garonne,  Gers,  Herault,  Lot,  Lo- 
zere,  Hautes-Pyr6n6es,  Pyrenees  Orientales,  Tarn,  Tam 
et  Garonne,  Vaucluse,  Var 4,826,493 


CRIME.  127 

districts,  composed  each  of  seventeen  departments,  and 
dividing  the  crimes  committed  in  each  of  these  regions 
into  two  classes,  i.  e.  "  crimes  against  property,"  and 
*'  crimes  against  the  person,"  the  following  table,  taking 
one  hundred  as  the  number  of  crimes  committed  in 
France,  gives  the  result  of  his  calculations. 


Crimes  against  the  Person. 


1825, 

1826. 

1827. 

1828, 

1829. 

1830. 

Average, 

rr, 

f  North  25  . 

24 

.  23 

.  26 

.  25 

.  24 

25 

2 

South  28  . 

26 

.  22 

.  23 

.  25 

.  23 

24 

East  17  . 

21 

.  19 

.  20 

.  19 

.  19 

19 

^ 

West  18  . 

16 

.  21 

.  17 

.  17 

.  16 

18 

OS 

V  Centre  12  . 

13 

.  15 

.  14 

14 

18 

14 

Total  100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

Cr 

imes  against  Property. 

< 

1825, 

1826. 

1827. 

1828, 

1829. 

1830. 

Average, 

k' 

('North  41  . 

42 

42 

43 

44 

44 

42 

z 

1  South  12  . 

11 

11 

12 

12 

11 

12 

East  18  . 

16 

17 

16 

14 

15 

16 

H 

West  17  . 

19 

19 

17 

17 

17 

18 

« 

\,  Centre  12  . 

12 

11 

12 

13 

13 

12 

Total  100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

100 

Of  all  the  marvellous  calculations  ever  yet  published, 
this  calculation  is  perhaps  the  most  marvellous ;  for 


Population. 

East. — Ain,  Basses  Alpes,  Hautes  Alpes,  Aube,  Cote  d'or, 
Doubs,  Drome,  Is^re,  Jura,  Haute  Marne,  Meurthe, 
Bas  Rhin,  Haute  Rhin,  Rhone,  Haute  Saone,  Saone  et 
Loire,  Vosges 5,840,996 

West. — Charente,  Charente  Inferieure,  Cotes  du  Nord, 
Dordogne,  Finist^re,  Gironde,  Ille  et  Vilaine,  Landes, 
Loire  Inferieure,  Lot  et  Garonne,  Maine  et  Loire, 
Mayenne,  Morbilian,  Basses  Pyrenees,  Dfeux  Sevres, 
Vendee,  Vienne 7,008,788 

Centre. — Allier,  Cantal,  Cher,  Correze,  Creuse,  Eure  et 
Loire,  Indre,  Indre  et  Loire,  Loire,  Loir  et  Cher,  Loiret, 
Haute    Loire,  Nevre,  Puy  de  Dome,   Sarthe,  Haute- 

Vienne,  Yonne        . 5,238,905 

Corse 185,079 

Total  Population     .        .        .  31,857,961 


1 28  CHARACTERISTICS. 

whatever  the  basis  on  which  the  computation  is  made,* 
it  is  not  a  whit  the  less  wonderful  that  it  should  in  six 
successive  years  give  an  almost  similar  result ;  and 
this,  not  in  one  species  of  crime — not  in  one  division 
of  France,  but  in  all  the  divisions  of  France,  and  in 
each  distinct  class  of  crime  I  .  .  .  Thus  maintaining 
between  the  different  portions  of  the  kingdom  a  par- 
ticular and  almost  invariable  criminal  ratio  (if  I  may 
thus  express  myself),  which  none  of  the  many  casualties 
to  which  human  life  is  subject  seem  effectually  to  alter 
or  control. 

A  difference  of  this  kind  cannot  be  the  effect  of  law, 
for  the  law  in  all  parts  of  France  is  the  same ;  it  can- 
not be  the  effect  of  accident,  because  it  would  not, 
surely,  in  that  case,  perpetually  recur.  What  has  in- 
struction to  do  with  it — I  mean  that  kind  of  instruc- 
tion on  which  persons  considering  these  subjects 
usually  found  their  propositions  ? 

*  M.  Guerry  takes  the  number  of  persons  accused  as  the  basis  of 
his  calculations ;  for  where  there  is  a  person  accused,  there,  he  says, 
naturally  enough,  there  must  be  a  crime  committed  ;  but  it  may  so 
happen  that  where  five  or  six  persons  are  accused  of  a  crime,  only 
one  may  have  committed  it,  and  vice  versa.  This  is  among  many 
of  the  observations  that  might  be  made  upon  the  general  accuracy 
of  these  kind  of  tables.  Monsieur  Guerry's  method,  however,  seems 
as  likely  to  be  correct  as  another ;  for  in  taking  the  basis  of  convic- 
tions, you  would  only  alter  your  errors  ;  and  indeed  the  original 
documents  are  collected  in  the  same  manner  by  the  minister  of  jus- 
tice. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  not  before  us,  however,  all 
the  elements  from  which  these  tables  are  formed — tables  which 
of  themselves,  if  accurate,  afford  sufficient  matter  for  the  most  im- 
portant work  on  history  and  legislation  that  has  yet  appeared 


CRIME. 


129 


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130 


CHARACTERISTICS. 


INSTRUCTION. 


No.     Departments. 


No.  of  young  men  know- 
ing how  to  read   and 


write  out 
scribed, 

1  Meuse  .        .        .        ,74 

2  Doubs  ,        ...     73 

3  Jura     ....     73 

4  Haute-Mame        .        .    72 

5  Haut-Rhin  ...    71 

6  Seine   ....    71 

7  Hautes-Alpes       .        .    69 

8  Meurthe       .        ,        .    68 

9  Ardennes      .        .        ,67 

10  Marne  .        .        .        .63 

11  Vosges  ...    62 

12  Bas-Rhin      .        .        .62 

13  Cote-d'Or     ...    60 

14  Haute-Saone        .        .    59 

15  Aube     ....     59 
1^  Moselle        ...    57 

17  Seine-et-Oise       .        .    56 

18  Eure-et-Loir         .        .    54 

19  Seine-et-Marne    .        .    54 

20  Oise      ....     54 

21  Hautes-Pyrenees .        .    53 

22  Calvados      ...     52 

23  Eure    ....    51 

24  Aisne    .        .        .        .51 

25  Corse   .        .        .        .49 

26  Pas-de-Calais       .        .    48 

27  Yonne  ....     47 

28  Basses-Pyrenees  .        .    47 

29  Basses-Alpes        .        .    46 

30  Nord     .        .         .        .45 

31  Rhone  ....    45 

32  Herault        ...    45 

33  Orne     ....    45 

34  Somme         .        .        .44 

35  Seine-Inferieure  .        .    43 

36  Manche        .        .        .43 

37  Loiret  ....    42 

38  Drome.        ...    42 

39  Deux- Sevres        .        .    41 

40  Gard    ....    40 

41  Gironde        ...    40 

42  Charente-Inferieure     .    39 

43  Bouches-du-Rhone      .    38 

44  Gers     .        .        .        .38 


No.  of  young  mer 

know- 

N.    n^anment.         ^.^^Zj^J^^^ 

scribed. 

Average  38. 

45  Vaucluse 

37 

46  Ain  . 

.    37 

47  Charente 

.    36 

48  Aude 

.    34 

49  Saone-et-Loire 

.    32 

50  Lot-et-Garonne 

31 

51  Cantal     . 

31 

52  Pyr^nees-Orientales 

31 

53  Haute-Garomae 

31 

54  Aveyion  . 

31 

55  Sarthe     . 

30 

56  Loire 

29 

57  Is^re 

29 

58  Landes    . 

28 

59  Vendue    . 

28 

60  Loz^re     . 

27 

61  Loir-et-Cher    . 

27 

62  Ardeche  . 

.    27 

63  Indre-et-Loire  . 

27 

64  Tarn-et-Garonne     . 

25 

65  Vienne     . 

25 

66  lUe-et-Vilaine  . 

25 

67  Loire-Inferieure 

24 

68  Lot  . 

24 

69  Var . 

23 

70  Maine-et-Loire 

23 

71  Creuse     . 

23 

72  Haute-Loire     . 

21 

73  Tarn 

20 

74  Ni^vre     . 

20 

75  Mayenne . 

19 

76  Puy-de-D6me  . 

19 

77  Ari^ge      . 

18 

78  Dordogne 

18 

79  Indre 

17 

80  C6tes-du-Nord 

16 

81  Finist^re 

15 

82  Morbihan 

14 

83  Cher 

13 

84  Haute- Vienne 

13 

85.Allier       . 

13 

86Corr^ze    . 

12 

In  this  map,  obscurity  of  the  tints  corresponds  with  the  minimum 
of  instruction,  i.e.  with  the  maximum  of  ignorance. 


CRIME. 


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CRIME. 


133 


CRIMES  AGAINST  PERSONS. 


I  accused  out 
No.  Departments,  of inhabit- 

ants. 

1  Corse 2,199 

2  Lot 5,885 

3  Ariege 6,173 

4  Pyreii6es-Orientales 6,728 

5  HautRhin 7,343 

6  Lozere 7,710 

7  Aveyron 8,236 

8  Ardeche 9,474 

9  Doubs 11,560 

10  Moselle 12,153 

1 1  Hautes-Pyrinees 12,223 

12  Bas-Rhin 12,309 

13  Seine  et  Oise 12,477 

14  H6rault 12,814 

15  Basses-Alpes 12,9.35 

16  Tarn 13,019 

17  Card 13,115 

18  Var 13,145 

19  Dr6me 13,396 

20  Douches  du  Rhdne 13,409 

21  Vaucluse 13,576 

22  Seine 13,945 

23  Tarn  et  Garonne 14,790 

24  Eure 14,795 

25  Vienne 15,010 

26  Correze 15,262 

27  Marne 15,602 

28  Aude. 15,647 

29  Haute-Loire 16,170 

30  Haute-Vienne.... 16,256 

31  Basses-Pyr^nfees 16,722 

Average  17,085. 

32  Puy  de  Dome 17,256 

33  Hautes- Alpes 1 7,488 

34  Calvados 17,577 

35  Landes 17,687 

36  Loiret 17,722 

37  Yonne 18,006 

38  Cantal 18,070 

39  Seine  Inferieure 18,355 

■  40  Deux-S^vres 18,400 

41  Haute-Garonne 18,642 

42  Gers 18,642 

43  Charente  Inferieure 18,712 


1  accused  cot 
No.  Departments.  of inhabit- 

ants. 

44  Isere 46,785 

45  Rh6ne 18,793 

46  Vosgcs 18,835 

47  Indre  et  Loire..  19,131 

48  Loire  Inferieure 19,314 

49' Aube 19,602 

50  Vendee 20,827 

51  Loiret  Cher 21,292 

52  Eureet  Loir 21,368 

53  Dordogne 21.585 

54  Cher 21,934 

55  Ille  et  Vilaine 22, 1 38 

56  Seine  et  Marne 22.20 1 

57  Haute  Sa6ne 22,3,39 

58  Lot  et  Garonne 22,969 

59  Pas-rte-Calais 23,101 

60  Morbihan 23,316 

61  Gironde 24,096 

62  Meuse 24,507 

63  Charente 24,964 

64  Nievre 25,087 

65  Jura 26,221 

66  Aisne 26,226 

67  Haute-Marne 26,23 1 

68  Meurthe 26,574 

69  Nord 26,740 

70  AUier 26,747 

71  Loire 27,491 

72  Oise 28,180 

73  Orne. 28.329 

74  Mayenne 28^331 

75  Cdtes-du-Nord 28.607 

76  Sa6ne  et  Loire 28,391 

77  Aine.. 28,870 

78  Maine  et  Loire 29,592 

79  Finist^re 29,872 

80  Manche 31,078 

81  C6te  d'Or 32,256 

82  Indre 32,404 

83  SoiTime 33,592 

84  Sarlhe 33,913 

85  Ardennes 35,203 

86  Creuse 37,014 


The  number  inscribed  upon  each  department,  in  the  annexed  map,  refers 
to  the  numbers  of  the  table  subjoined,  which  table  indicates  the  average  pro- 
portion of  crimes  with  the  population;  the  different  degrees  of  shade  corre- 
spond with  the  number  of  crimes  represented. 

Thus,  in  this  map,  the  department  of  Corsica  (No.  1),  of  which  the  tint  is 
the  darkest,  presents  the  maximum  of  crime,  i.e.  one  person  accused  out  of  every 
2,199  inhabitants.  The  department  of  Creuse  (No.  86),  of  which  the  lint  is 
the  lightest,  presents  the  minimum  of  crime,  i.  e.  one  person  accused  out  of 
every  37,014  inhabitants. 

12 


134 


CHARACTERISTICS 


CRIMES  AGAINST  PROPERTY. 


accused  out 
Departments.  of  inhabit- 

ants. 

1  Seine     -        -  -  1,368 

2  Seine-Inferieure  -  2,906 

3  Seine-et-Oise  -  3,879 

4  Eure-et-Loire  -  4,016 

5  Pas-de-Calais  -  4,040 

6  Aube      -        -  -  4,086 

7  Calvados       -  -  4,500 

8  Rhone  -        -  -  4,504 

9  Moselle          -  -  4,529 

10  Corse    -        -  -  4,589 

11  Vienne  -        -  -  4,710 

12  Eure     -        -  -  4,774 

13  Haut-Rhin    -  -  4,915 

14  Bas-Rhin       -  -  4,920 

15  Marne   -        -  -  4,950 

16  Loiret    -        -  -  5,042 

17  Bouches-du-Rhone  5,291 

18  Charente-Inferieure  5,357 

19  Aisne     -        -  -  5,521 

20  Vaucluse       -  -  5,731 

21  Seine-et-Mame  -  5,786 

22  Doubs    -        -  -  5,914 

23  Lozere  -        -  -  5,990 

24  Loir-et-Cher  -  -  6,017 

Average  6,031. 

25  Landes  -        -  -  6,170 

26  Nord     -        -  -  6,175 

27  Tarn     -        -  -  6,241 

28  Haute- Vienne  -  6,402 

29  Yonne  -        -  -  6,516 

30  Ille-et-Vilaine  -  6,524 

31  Oise      -        -  -  6,659 

32  Aveyron         -  -  6,731 

33  Meurthe         -  -  6,831 

34  Finist^re        -  -  6,842 

35  Deux-S^vres  -  6,863 

36  Indre-et-Loire  -  6,909 

37  Cotes-du-Nord  -  7,059 

38  Somme-        -  -  7,144 

39  Haute-Garonne  -  7,204 

40  Basses-Alpes  -  7,289 

41  Gironde         -  -  7,423 

42  Manche         -  -  7,424 

43  Vendue          -  -  7,566 


1  accused  o; 

No.        Departments.  of inhabit 

ants. 

;44  Indre      -        -  -    7,624 

45  Pyr6n^es-0rientales  7,632 

46  Drome    -        -  -    7,759 

47  Haute-Saone  -  -    7,770 

48  Allier      -        -  -    7,925 
p  49  Morbihan        -  -    7,940 

50  Gard       -        -  -    7,990 

51  Jura        -        -  -     8,059 

52  Hautes-Alpes  -  -    8,174 

53  Ni^vre  -         -  -    8,236 

54  Orne       -        -  -     8,248 

55  Sarthe    -        -  -    8,294 

56  Isere       -        -  -    8,326 

57  Maine-et-Loire  -    8,520 

58  Basses-Pyrenees  -    8,533 

59  Tarne-et-Garonne  -  8,680 
P  60  Ardennes        -  -    8,847 

61  Lot-et-Garonne  -    8,943 

62  Vosges  -        -  -    9,044 

63  Lot         ...    9,049 

64  Cote-d'Or  -  -  9,159 
P  65  Mouse    -        -  -    9,190 

66  Mayenne        -  -    9,198 

67  Loire-lnf^rieure  -  9,392 
P  68  Haute-Marne-  -    9,539 

69  Var         -        -  -    9,572 

70  Ari^ge    -        -  -    9,597 

71  Hautes-Pyr^n6es  -    9,797 

72  Dordogne  -  -  10,237 
P  73  Ard^che          -  -  10,263 

74  Ande      -        -  -  10,431 

75  Gers       -        -  -  10,486 

76  Cher       -        -  -  10,503 

77  Saone-et-Loire  -  10,708 

78  Herault  -        -  -  10,954 

79  Cantal  -  -  -  11,645 
p  80  Puy-de-D6me  -  12,141 
p  81  Loire  -  -  -  12,665 
p  82  Corrfeze  -        -  -  12,949 

83  Charente        -  -  13,018 

84  Ain  -  -  -  15,890 
p  85  Haute-Loire  -  -  18,043 
p  86  Creuse    -        -  -  20,235 


The  same  rule  of  distinction  applies  as  in  the  last. 


CitlME.  135 

In  estimating  the  influence  of  instruction,  Monsieur 
Guerry  takes  as  the  test  of  education  the  list  of  those 
returned  to  the  minister  of  war  at  the  period  of  con- 
scription, as  able  to  read  and  write ;  and  making  use 
of  the  nve  divisions  I  have  mentioned,  he  compares  the 
maps  which  paint  the  state  of  instruction  with  those 
which  depict  the  state  of  crime.  From  this  compari- 
son we  see,  that  while  the  crimes  against  persons  are 
the  most  frequent  in  Corsica,  the  provinces  of  the 
south-east,  and  Alsace,  where  the  people  are  well 
instructed,  there  are  the  fewest  of  those  crimes  in 
Berry,  Limousin,  and  Brittany,  where  the  people  are 
most  ignorant. 

Such  is  the  case  in  respect  to  crimes  against  the 
person.  As  for  crimes  against  property,  it  is  almost 
invariably  those  departments  that  are  the  best  informed 
which  are  the  most  criminal.  Should  M.  Guerry  not 
be  altogether  wrong  then,  this  must  appear  certain — 
that  if  instruction  do  not  increase  crime,  which  may  be 
a  matter  of  dispute,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  it 
diminishes  it.  But  the  fact  is,  that  neither  by  the 
measure  adopted  by  M.  Guerry,  nor  by  any  measure 
that  we  could  adopt,  is  there  any  possibility  of  arriving 
statistically  at  the  real  value  of  instruction. 

Under  the  denomination  of  persons  "  able  to  read 
and  write,"  are  those  who  read  in  spelling,  and  perpe- 
trate an  undecipherable  scrawl,  under  the  inspection 
of  a  village  schoolmaster,  and  those  who  have  received 
all  the  advantages  of  a  scholastic  and  liberal  education. 
"  Writing  and  reading,"  the  lowest  grade  of  acquisition 
to  one  man,  the  highest  to  another — important,  I  admit, 
when  possessed  to  a  degree  that  affords  an  easy  access 
to  knowledge,  almost  useless  when  it  is  merely  taken 
to  describe  a  difficult  and  machinal  movement  of  the 
lips  and  fingers, — is  an  absurd  and  ridiculous  defini- 
tion, thus  indiscriminately  selected,  of  the  mental  state 
of  a  district.  That  province  which  possesses  but  two 
hundred  persons  able  to  read  and  write  may  havs  twice 
as  many  of  all  the  advantages  and  the  feelings  con- 
ferred by  education  spread  over  it,  as  may  be  found 


136  CHARACTERISTICS. 

in  another  province  containing  four  hundred  of  these 
readers  and  writers.  Besides,  even  supposing,  which 
we  do  not  suppose,  that  a  man  taken  from  Brittany- 
writes  just  as  good  a  hand,  reads  with  quite  as  much 
facility,  as  a  man  taken  from  Provence,  and  that  both 
these  scholars  can  only  read  and  write^ — in  order  to 
believe  that  their  similar  degree  of  knowledge  is  to 
conduct  to  similar  results,  it  is  necessary  to  believe 
that  they  have  the  same  abilities,  the  same  tempera- 
ment, the  same  strength  of  mind  and  body.  If  there 
be  any  difference  between  men  which  is  as  great, 
much  more  if  there  be  any  difference  between  men 
which  is  greater  than  the  being  able  to  read  and  write, 
and  the  not  being  able  to  read  and  write — how,  in  the 
name  of  Providence,  are  you  able  to  decide  that  it  is 
tliat  especial  difference  of  reading  and  writing  from 
which  you  are  to  deduce  the  consequence  of  their  con- 
duct ?  In  short,  if  we  could  bring  our  calculations  to 
the  nicest  accuracy,  as  we  now  found  them  on  the 
vaguest  grounds,  we  should  still,  I  fear,  be  as  far  as 
ever  from  the  power  of  forming  the  accurate  con- 
clusion which  all  these  Quixotic  calculators  are  in 
search  of. 

It  is  not  then  merely  on  account  of  M.  Guerry's 
figures  that  I  think  the  conclusion  at  which  he  here 
arrives  probable  and  likely  to  be  just.  No  one  ever 
yet  pretended  to  say  that  in  Italy,  where  there  was  the 
most  civilization  during  the  middle  ages,  there  was  the 
least  crime ;  and  I  do  not  place  much  faith  in  the 
philosopher  who  pretends  that  the  knowledge  which 
develops  the  passions  is  an  instrument  for  their  sup- 
pression, or  that  where  there  are  the  most  desires 
there  is  likely  to  be  the  most  order  and  the  most  ab- 
stinence in  their  gratification.  It  is  more  candid  and 
more  wise  for  the  advocate  of  knowledge  to  take  a 
larger  and  a  broader  ground;  to  admit  at  once  the 
existence  of  the  two  principles  by  which  the  world 
has  ever  yet  been  divided — to  admit  that  the  sources 
of  power  and  pleasure  are  also  the  sources  of  crime 
and  vice — that  where  there  is  good,  there  will  be  evil 


CJilME.  137 

—to  contend  merely  that  that  is  good  which  is  more 
good  than  evil ;  for  natm-e  is  governed  by  one  law,  and 
the  stream  of  civilization  but  resembles  that  mysterious 
river  which  folds  the  crocodile  in  the  same  wave  that 
is  also  charged  with  the  golden  seeds  that  shall  fertilize 
the  soil.* 

If  education  be  an  advantage,  it  is  so,  not  because  it 
prevents  men  from  committing  crimes,  but  because  it 
adds  to  the  enjoyments  of  mankind  without  increasing 
their  vices  in  the  same  proportion.  But  should  edu- 
cation add  to  human  guilt  more  than  it  adds  to  human 
happiness — should  this  be  the  case,  the  fault  is  very 
much  in  ourselves,  and  very  much  owing,  let  me  add, 
to  all  education  being  insufficient — to  the  absurd  belief 
that  to  teach  reading  and  writing  is  quite  enough,  and 
that  there  we  may  halt  and  rest  satisfied  with  the  good 
work  that  we  have  performed.  As  well  might  we  say, 
that  if  we  could  but  turn  the  river  into  our  grounds,  it 
would  be  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  whether  we 
led  it  to  the  mill,  or  allowed  it  to  inundate  the  corn- 
field. 

In  giving  instruction  we  create  a  power  which,  if 
left  to  itself,  may  produce  more  good  than  evil — which 
will  always  produce  good  with  evil,  but  which  it  is 
still  our  duty  to  govern  and  direct,  in  order  to  make  it 
produce  as  muchf  good,  as  little  evil,  as  possible  ;  and 

*  I  find  myself  in  such  harmony  with  the  following  passage,  that  I 
cannot  help  referring  to  it : — "  Du  reste,nous  disons  a  cette  occasion 
notre  opinion  toute  enti^re  sur  I'infiuence  de  I'instruction.  Les 
avantages  nous  paraissent  infiniment  superieurs  a  ses  inconveniens. 
Elle  developpe  les  intelligences  et  soutient  toutes  les  industries. 
Elle  protege  ainsi  la  force  morale  et  le  bien-^tre  materiel  des  peuples. 
Les  passions  qu'elle  excite,  funestes  k  la  societe  quand  rien  ne  les 
contents,  deviennent  fecondes  en  avantages  lorsqu'elles  peuvent 
atteindre  le  but  qu'elles  poursuivent.  Ainsi  I'instruction  repand,  il 
est  vrai,  parmi  les  hommes  quelques  semences  de  corruption,  mais 
c'est  elle  aussi  qui  rend  les  peuples  plus  riches,  et  plus  forts.  Chez 
une  vxition  entmir^e  de  voisins  dclairh,  elle  est  non  seulement  un  bienfait 
mais  une  n^-cessitd  politique. — Beaumont  et  Tocqueville,  Du  Sys- 
teme  Penitentiaire  aux  Etats  Unis. 

t  I  was  rather  surprised  the  other  day  at  hearing  Lord  Brougham 
quote  the  very  able  and  interesting  volume  of  Messrs.  Beaumont  and 
Tocqueville,  on  the  state  of  crime  in  America,  as  a  proof  of  the  pre- 
ventive to  crime  that  was  to  be  found  in  the  mere  expulsion  of 
12* 


138  CHARACTEIIISTICS. 

if  we  wish  to  make  ourselves  sure  of  its  results — if  we 
wish  from  afar  to  see,  to  regulate,  and  rejoice  in  its 
effects — we  must  not  only  fill  the  mind,  we  must /orm 
the  character — we  must  not  only  give  ideas,  we  must 
give  habits,  we  must  make  education  moral  as  well 
as  intellectual — we  must  give  men  great  designs  and 
good  desires,  at  the  same  time  that  we  invite  them  to 
exertion,  and  make  easy  to  them  the  paths  of  ambition. 
But  to  turn  from  general  dissertation  to  the  more 
immediate  subject  that  is  before  us — it  now,  I  venture 
to  presume,  appears,  as  well  from  the  very  remarkable 
tables  I  have  given  as  from  the  maps  to  which  I  refer, 
that  in  France,  at  all  events,  there  seems  to  be  some 
influence  or  influences  superior  to  accident,  independ- 
ent of  laws,  independent  of  any  existing  system  of 
instruction,  regulating  crimes — and  the  distribution  of 
crimes  :  not  merely  m  respect  to  their  number,  but  also 
in  respect  to  their  kind. 

ignorance,  What  do  these  gentlemen  say?— "It  may  seem  that  a 
state,  having  every  vent  for  its  industry  and  its  agriciiUure,  will 
commit  less  crime  than  another  which,  equally  enjoying  these  ad- 
vantages, does  not  equally  enjoy  the  advantages  of  inteUigence  and 
enlightenment."  "  Nevertheless  wj  do  not  think  that  you  can  attribute  the 
diminution  of  crimes  in  the  north  to  instruction,  because  in  Connecticut, 
where  there  is  far  more  instruction  than  in  New-York,  crime  increases 
with  a  terrible  rapidity,  and  if  one  cannot  accuse  knowledge  as  the 
cause  of  this,  one  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  not  a  preventive." 
This  is  what  Messrs.  Beaumont  and  Tocqueville  say  of  the  effects 
of  instruction  in  general  in  America.  But  there  are  institutions  in 
America  where  the  experiment  of  instruction  is  made — not  merely  on 
the  boy  whom  you  wish  to  bring  up  in  virtue,  but  on  the  boy  who  has 
already  fallen  into  the  paths  of  vice ;  and,  singular  to  say,  the  edu- 
cation given  in  the houses  of  refuge  to  the  young  delinquents  produces 
an  effect  upon  them  which  education  does  not  in  general  produce 
upon  society.  Why  is  this  ?  because  the  education  in  these  houses 
is  a  moral  education— because  its  object  is  not  merely  to  load  the 
memory,  but  to  elevate  the  soul,  to  improve  and  to  form  the  character. 
"Do  not  lie!  and  do  as  well  as  you  can!"  Such  are  the  simple 
words  with  which  these  children  are  admitted  into  these  institutions ; 
no  tale-bearing  is  allowed;  all  corporal  punishments  are  prohibited — 
"  la  discipline  de  ces  etablissemens  est  toute  morale,  et  repose  sur 
des  principes  qui  appartienent  a  la  plus  haute  philosophic.  Tout 
tend  b.  y  relever  Tame  des  leunes  detenus  et  a  les  rendre  jaloux  de 
leur  propre  estirne,  et  de  celui  de  leur  semblables :  pour  y  parvenir, 
on  feint  de  les  traiter  comme  des  hommes,  et  comme  les  membres 
d'une  societe  libre."  I  sincerely  invite  my  readers  to  pay  some  at- 
tention to  this  part  of  Messrs.  Beaumont  and  Tocqueville's  volume, 
page  206. — Du  Systeme  Pinitmtiaire. 


criMri  139 

How  far  Jhe  peculiarities  of  race,  the  habits  result- 
ing from  Old  iiiotiiutions,  the  dilferences  arising  from  a 
rich  or  barren  soil — from  a  level  or  mountainous  dis- 
trict— from  the  communication  of  rivers,  or  the  absence 
of  rivers, — how  tar  all  these  circumstances,  each 
affecting  the  passions,  the  propensities,  the  pursuits, 
the  wants,  and  consequently  the  crimes  of  a  varied 
population,  may  extend  their  empire,  M.  Guerry,  de- 
ploring the  want  of  any  materials  on  which  to  calculate, 
leaves  us  in  doubts,*  which  I  do  not  find  myself  quali- 
fied to  dispel.  Amid  these  doubts  we  are  only  sensi- 
ble that  France,  in  spite  of  its  system  of  unity,  still 
contains  a  variety  of  distinct  races,  with  different  lan- 
guages, different  prejudices,  different  manners ;  and  that 
neither  the  line  and  measure  of  Abbe  Sieyes,  nor  the 
terrible  policy  of  the  Mountain,  nor  the  centralizing 
genius  of  Napoleon,  have  been  able  to  give  to  the 
grave  and  slow  inhabitant  of  Normandy  the  joyous 
and  eager  character  of  the  chivalric  child  of  Beam. 

What  we  have  derived  so  far  from  M.  Guerry,  then, 
is  merely  negative — no  proof  of  what  is — but  suffi- 
cient proof  that  that  is  not  which  many  have  con- 
tended to  he.  But  having  completely  set  aside  the 
doctrine  of  accident,  having  had  no  opportunity  to  trace 
the  effects  of  government — not  having  satisfactorily 
established  the  effects  of  intelligence — having  left  us 
in  complete  doubt  as  to  various  influences  that  do  oper- 
ate, and  that  must  operate  upon  human  actions, — M. 
Guerry  does  at  last  show  us  some  influences  visible 
upon  our  conduct  which  it  will  be  interesting  to  the 
reader  that  I  should  point  out.  There  is  the  influence 
of  climate,  and  there  is  the  influence  of  the  seasons, 
which  M.  Guerry  has  not  connected,  but  which  I 
would  wish  to  place  in  connection  together — for,  ob- 
serve, that  whereas  the  crimes  against  the  person  are 
always  more  numerous  in  the  summer,  the  crimes 
against  property  are  more  numerous  in  the  winter — so 
of  the  crimes  committed  in  the  south,  the  crimes  against 

*  But  what  the  statist  has  not  done  with  his  tables,  the  poet  has 
done  with  his  songs,  and  the  people  with  their  proverbs. 


140  CHARACTERISTICS. 

the  person  are  far  more  numerous  than  those  against 
property,  while  in  the  north  the  crimes  against  prop- 
erty are,  in  the  same  proportion,  more  numerous  than 
those  against  the  person.  Indeed,  by  comparing  the 
two  maps  we  find,  as  a  general  rule,  that  wherever 
there  are  the  most  crimes  against  persons,  there  are 
the  fewest  against  property.* 

But  the  effects  of  summer  and  winter  are  more 
strongly  marked  and  more  exact  in  their  recurrence, 
than  the  effects  of  north  and  south. 

Of  a  hundred  attempts  against  public  morals  committed  yearly. 
Years.        1827.  1828.  1829.  1830.  I  Average 

36        .        36        .        35        .        38     I        36. 
During  the  three  summer  months. 

Of  a  hundred  cuts  and  wounds  committed  yearly. 
Years.         1827.  ]  828.  1829.  1830.  I  Average 

28         .         27         .        27         .         27      I       28. 
During  the  three  summer  months. 

The  influence,  then,  of  the  atmosphere!  upon  crime 

*  We  must  except  Alsace  and  the  departments  of  Corsica,  Seine  et 
Oise,  Moselle  and  Lozere,  which  are  equally  criminal  in  both  cases. 

Les  attentats  a  la  pudeur  (rapes)  form  a  sixth  of  the  crimes  com- 
mitted upon  persons  :  crimes  against  property  are  nearly  three-fourths 
of  the  total  number  of  crimes — and  of  these  we  may  count  five  thou- 
sand three  hundred  per  year.  Domestic  thefts  form  a  fourth  of  the 
crimes  against  property  :  the  number  of  crimes  against  property  have 
increased,  the  number  of  crimes  against  the  person  diminished,  of 
later  years. 

t  But  the  difference  between  the  north  and  the  south  of  France 
becomes  still  more  remarkable  if,  after  comparing  them  together,  we 
then  compare  France  with  England. 

England  and  Wales  contain  about  half  the  population  of  France  ; 
they  are  guilty,  I  may  fairly  say,  of  more  than  double  the  amount  of 
crime  ;  but  in  this  total,  so  much  greater  than  the  total  of  France, 
there  is  not  more  than  one  rape,  or  attempt  to  commit  rape,  in  Eng- 
land, to  every  three  offences  of  a  similar  description  in  France. 
There  is  not  more  than  one  murder,  or  attempt  to  commit  murder,  in 
England,  to  every  six  murders,  or  attempts  to  commit  murder,  in 
France.  Take  infanticides  alone — there  are  in  France  a  hundred 
and  eighteen  ;  in  England  and  Wales,  in  spite  of  the  great  increase 
in  these  cases  durmg  the  years  1829,  1830,  and  1831,  about  twenty- 
eight  convictions  and  thirty  committals.  Is  it  the  severity  of  our 
penal  code  wliich  produces  this  effect  ?  Not  so  ;  for  since  capital 
punishments  have  become  more  rare  in  France,  the  number  of  crimes 
against  persons  (crimes  of  personal  violence)  have  diminished. 

No  very  accurate  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  two  countries 


CRIME. 


141 


O 

< 
m 

K 
O 

o 


i>  00  00  00  00 


142  CHAUACTEKISriCS. 

— the  influence  of  climate,  thus  seeing  it,  as  we  do, 
in  conjunction  with  the  influence  of  the  seasons,  is 
difficult  to  controvert,  and  seems  sufficient,  in  a  slight 
degree,  to  separate  France  from  other  countries,  and 
the  different  divisions  of  France  from  each  other. 

But  it  is  in  the  influence  which  age  and  which  sex 
exercise  upon  crime  in  France  that  there  more  espe- 
cially lies  a  vast  field  of  inquiry — as  to  the  morals,  the 
habits,  and  the  character  of  the  French.  In  respect 
to  the  influences  of  age,  I  publish  a  table,  the  only  one 
of  the  sort  ever  made,  and  which  I  think  no  reader  will 
look  at  without  considerable  interest. 

As  is  natural  to  suppose,  the  greatest  number  of 
crimes  committed  by  both  sexes  are  committed  be- 
tween twenty-five  and  thirty  years  of  age :  a  time 
when  the  faculties  are  most  developed,  and  the  pas- 
sions most  strong.  Assassinations  become  more  and 
more  frequent  after  the  age  of  twenty  years  up  to  the 
age  of  fifty :  forgery  takes  the  same  rule  of  progres- 
sion, but  continues  increasing  up  to  the  age  of  seventy 
and  above.  The  most  striking  fact  is  the  enormous 
proportion  that  rapes  upon  children  bear  among  crimes 
committed  by  persons  past  the  age  of  sixty — in  a 
thousand  crimes,  from  fifty  to  sixty,  eighty-eight  are 
rapes  upon  children ;  from  sixty  to  seventy,  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-six ;  from  seventy  to  eighty  and  up- 
wards, three  hundred  and  eighteen. 

This  crime  is  thrice  as  frequent  as  any  other  among 
old  people,  and  one  sees  here — what  is  the  case  in 
maladies  of  all  kinds — precisely  the  most  appetite 
where  there  is  the  worst  digestion. 

Thus  we  are  led  to  the  influence  of  the  sexes ;  and 
most  singularly  does  it  display  itself  in  the  fact,  that 
the  crime*  second  in  precedence  among  young  men  is 

"if  which  the  laws  and  the  pohce  are  different ;  still,  make  every 
allowance  for  these,  and  you  will  yet  find  the  same  difference  be- 
tween France  and  England  that  there  is  between  the  south  of  France 
and  the  north.  There  will  be  more  crimes  in  England  against 
property,  fewer  crimes  against  the  person,  and  a  larger  total  of  crimes 
altogether. 
*  I  speak  of  the  crimes  against  persons. 


CRIME.  143 

rape  upon  adults — the  crime  first  in  precedence  among 
old  men,  rapes  upon  children. 

From  the  first  step  to  the  last  then,  from  the  entry 
into  life  to  the  departure  from  it,  the  influence  of  the 
sexes,  in  all  its  wonderful  variations,  from  physical 
passion  to  moral  depravity,  predominates  in  France 
over  human  actions,  and  shows  here,  in  a  more  serious 
manner,  many  of  those  traits  in  character  to  which  I 
have  elsewhere,  in  a  lighter  tone,  alluded. 

Nor  is  this  all ;  we  find  that  in  the  committals  in 
England  and  Wales,  the  females  are  in  the  proportion 
of  one  to  five  ;  in  France,  the  females  are  in  the  pro- 
portion of  one  to  three. 

The  difference  indeed  between  the  crimes  of  the 
male  and  the  female  in  France  does  not  seem  .caused 
by  the  superior  innocence,  but  by  the  greater  weakness 
of  the  female  :  for  exactly  as  a  woman's  facility  for 
committing  crime  increases,  her  criminality  also  in- 
creases, and  becomes  more  especially  remarkable — 
where  one  would  have  hoped  to  find  it  least  so,  viz. 
beneath  her  master's,  her  father's,  and  her  husband's 
roof.  Two-fifths  of  the  thefts  by  females  are  domestic 
thefts,  whereas  only  one-fifth  of  the  thefts  by  males  are 
thefts  of  this  description.  Committing  only  one  murder 
in  twenty,  and  one  assault  in  twenty-five,*  the  woman 
is  guilty  of  every  third  parricide,  of  half  the  crimes  by 
poison, — and  whenever  man  or  wife  conspire  against 
the  life  of  the  other,  the  accomplice,  if  chosen  from 
the  family,  is  almost  certain  (says  M.  Guerry)  to  be  a 
female.  So  restless,  so  active,  so  incapable  of  repose 
and  insignificance,  in  France,  is  this  nervous  and  irri- 
table sex — here  poisoning  a  husband,  there  intriguing 
for  a  lover — here  spouting  for  equal  rights,  there  scrib- 
bling in  the"livre  rose," — the  nature. of  the  French 
woman  is  still  the  same,  sometimes  conducting  her  to 
glory,  sometimes  to  the  galleys. 

*  Infanticide  is  the  crime  most  frequent  to  females  ;  assassination 
(murder  premeditated)  comes  the  next.  There  are  one  hundred  and 
seven  assassinations  by  women  to  forty-nine  murders.  On  a  hundred 
crimes  "  against  persons"  the  men  are  guilty  of  eighty-six,  the  women 
of  fourteen.  On  a  hundred  crimes  against  property,  the  men  com- 
mit seventy-nine,  the  women  twenty-one. 


1 44  CHARACTERISTICS. 

And  now  pursumg  his  analysis,  Monsieur  Guerry 
conducts  us  from  crimes  to  their  motives. 

On  a  thousand  crimes  of  poisoning,  murder,  assassi- 
nation, and  incendiarism,  we  find  by  his  account  that 
Hatred  and  vengeance  cause         .         .         264 
Domestic  dissensions  .         .         .  143 

Quarrels  at  gambling-houses  .         .  113 

Adultery 64 

Debauchery,  concubinage,  seduction      .  53 

Jealousy      .  .         .         .         .         .  16 

Hatred  and  vengeance  cause  the  most  of  these 
crimes — ;jealousy  causes  the  least.  Remark  ! — one 
of  the  most  common  crimes  in  France  is — rape  ;  one 
of  the  weakest  incentives  to  crime  is  jealousy  !  .  . .  . 
Adultery,  however,  causes  a  large  proportion  of  the 
crimes  (thirty-five  in  a  hundred).  But  this  is  not  the 
effect  of  jealousy — it  is  not  the  person  injured  who 
avenges  himself  or  herself;  no,  it  is  the  person  injur- 
ing ;  it  is  not  the  deceived,  it  is  the  deceiver,  who 
commits  one  crime  as  the  consequent  of  the  other. 
Clytemnestra  is  the  home  tragedy  of  private  life,  and 
we  find  that  in  three  cases  out  of  five  it  is  the  adul- 
terous wife  and  her  accomplices  who  conspire  against 
the  life  of  the  betrayed  husband.* 

Debauch,  concubinage,  and  seduction  cause  almost 
as  many  crimes  as  adultery  ;  but  here  it  is  the  life 
of  the  woman,  as  in  adultery  it  is  the  life  of  the 
man,  that  is  most  menaced.  A  faithful  mistress  is  a 
burthen  ;  an  unfaithful  one  is  passionately  loved.  The 
connection  sought  from  inclination  is  viewed  very  dif- 
ferently from  that  which  is  usually  dictated  by  in- 
terest, and  the  infidelity  of  the  mistress  excites  far 
more  angry  feelings  than  the  infidelity  of  the  wife. 
At  all  events,  among  wives,  the  infidelity  of  the  woman 
causes  but  one  in  thirty-three  of  the  assaults  upon  her 

*  I  recommend  M.  Guerry's  tables  as  an  antidote  to  the  novels  of 
the  day,  and  the  doctrines  in  favour  of  adultery — to  which  husbands 
listen  with  so  willing  an  ear. 


CRIME.  145 

life :  among  mistresses,  the  infidelity  of  the  woman 
causes  one  in  every  six  of  these  assaults.  It  is  amus- 
ing to  have  these  facts  before  our  eyes,  and  instructive 
to  communicate  them  to  those  married  ladies  who 
declare  that  the  fickleness  of  their  nature  renders 
them  inimical  to  wedlock.  Let  me  venture  to  suggest 
—that  their  infidelity  will  expose  their  lives  six  times 
as  often  as  it  does  now,  if  they  succeed  in  their  pro- 
jects of  female  enfranchisement. 

The  two  circumstances  next  demanding  our  atten- 
tion are  the  number  of  natural  children  and  the  number 
of  suicides  in  France,  which,  though  not  coming  under 
the  head  of  crimes,  are  connected  with  the  same  state 
of  society,  with  the  same  character,  and  with  the  same 
passions. 

The  annual  number  of  natural  children  is  67,876 
(34,708  males,  and  33,168  females).  The  depart- 
ment of  the  Seine,  which  produces  a  thirty-second  of 
the  population,  produces  one-sixth  of  the  natural 
children ;  and  one-third*  of  the  population  of  Paris 
would  actually  be  illegitimate  but  for  the  unhappy 
destiny  which  infants  so  begotten  undergo ;  three- 
fifths  of  these  children  are  abandoned  by  their  parents, 
and  one  out  of  every  three  dies  before  attaining  his 
third  year.  Where  we  find  the  most  hospitals — 
there  we  find  the  fewest  infanticides.  But  such  is  the 
state  of  these  institutions  that,  little  better  than  a 
device  for  encouraging  prostitution  and  checking  pop- 
ulation, they  do  that  which  the  law  forbids  the  aban- 
doned parent  to  do — they  murder  the  child.  They 
transfer  the  guilt  from  the  individual  to  the  state. 
Miserable  duplicity  ! — the  mother  is  punished  for  her 
crime — the  government  is  lauded  for  its  humanity.f 

Such  is  charity  misapplied — 

Benefacta  male  coUocata,  malefacta  existima. 

Terent. 


*  M.  Chabrol  gives  a  greater  proportion. 

t  It  appears,  tliat  in  the  northern  provinces  where  there  is  the  most 
instruction  there  are  the  most  natural  children — the  most  prostitutes 
also  come  from  these  provinces. 
Vol.  I— G  13 


146  CHARACTERISTICS. 

I'he  number  of  suicides  committed  from  1827  to 
1830  are  6,900,  i.  e.  about  1,800  per  year;  and  the 
department  of  the  Seine,  which  contains  only  one- 
thirty-second  of  the  population,  presenting  us,  as  1 
have  said,  with  one-sixth  of  the  illegitimate  children, 
presents  us  also  with  one-sixth  of  the  suicides. 

The  most  suicides  are  committed  in  tlfe  north,  the 
least  in  the  south,  just  the  inverse  of  what  happens  in 
respect  to  murders  and  assassinations  ;  and  it  seems  an 
invariable  law,*  that  precisely  in  those  provinces  where 
people  are  most  tempted  to  kill  one  another,  they  are 
the  least  tempted  to  kill  themselves.  Strange  to  say, 
the  number  of  suicides  committed  in  one  year  amounts 
to  almost  the  total  number  of  crimes  against  the  person,! 
and,  excluding  infanticide,  to  more  than  three  times 
the  number  of  murders  and  assassinations  :|  so  that, 
if  a  person  be  found  dead,  and  you  have  only  to  con- 
jecture the  cause,  it  is  three  times  as  probable  that  he 
died  by  his  own  hand  as  by  that  of  another  person ! 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe,  that  the  number 
of  suicides  really  committed  must  be  far  more  numer- 
ous than  those  which  can  be  furnished  by  official  docu- 
ments. Monsieur  Guerry  has  given  a  table  of  the 
different  sentiments  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  different 
individuals  at  the  time  when  they  have  deprived  them- 
selves of  existence.  The  table  is  formed  according 
to  the  papers  found  on  the  persons  of  the  deceased. 

*  With  the  exception  of  Alsace  and  Provence, 
t  Number  of  suicides  1800 ;  crimes  against  the  person  1865. 
i  Number  of  murders,  assassinations,  &c.  .  ,  679 

Infanticide         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  118 

561 
3 

1683 
Suicides  1800 ;  i.  e.  more  than  three  times  the  amount  of  murders? 


CRIME. 


147 


Sentiments  expressed  in  the  writings  of  persons  having 
co?nmitted  Suicide. 


CITY  OF  PARIS. 


That  they  enjoy  their  reason. 

That  one  has  a  right  to  deUver 
one's  self  from  hfe  when  Life  is 
a  burden. 

That  they  have  come  to  the  deter- 
mination after  much  hesitation. 

Agonies  of  their  mind. 

That  they  were  confused  in  their 
ideas. 

The  horror  inspired  by  the  action 
which  they  are  about  to  com- 
mit. 

Pre-occupied  with  the  pains  they 
are  about  to  suffer. 

Fear  to  want  courage. 

Avowal  of  some  secret  crime. 

Regret  to  have  yielded  to  tempta- 
tion. 

Prayer  to  be  pardoned  their  faults. 

Desire  to  expiate  a  crime. 

That  they  are  become  reckless  on 
earth. 

Disgust  of  life. 

Reproaches  to  persons  of  whom 
they  think  they  have  a  right  to 
complain. 

Kind  expression  to  persons,  &cc. 

Adieus  to  their  friends. 

Desire  to  receive  the  prayers  of 
the  church. 

Insult  to  the  ministers  of  reUgion. 

Belief  in  a  future  hfe. 

Thoughts  of  debauch  and  hber- 
tinage. 

MateriaUsm. 

Prayer  not  to  give  pubhcity  to 
their  suicide. 

Wish  to  have  their  letters  pub- 
hshed  in  the  newspapers. 


Reflections  on  the  misery  of  hu- 
man life. 
BeUef  in  a  fatality. 

Prayer  to  their  children  to  pardon 
the  suicide  they  are  committing. 

That  they  die  men  of  honour. 

Regret  not  to  be  able  to  testify 
their  gratitude  to  their  benefac- 
tors. 

Talk  of  the  hopes  which  they  see 
vanish. 

Regrets  for  life. 

Prayers  to  their  friends  to  bestow 
some  tears  upofi  their  memory 

Regrets  to  quit  a  brother,  &c. 

Prayer  to  conceal  the  nature  of 
their  death  from  their  children. 

Solicitude  for  the  future  of  their 
children. 

Incertitude  of  a  future  life. 

Recommendation  of  their  souls  to 
God. 

Confidence  in  divine  mercy. 

Instructions  for  their  funerals. 

Prayer  to  their  friends  to  keep  a 
mesh  of  hair,  a  ring,  in  remem- 
brance of  them. 

Desire  to  be  buried  with  a  ring  or 
other  token  of  remembrance. 

Request  as  to  the  manner  they 
would  be  buried. 

Fear  to  be  exposed  at  the  Morgue. 

Reflections  on  what  will  become 
of  the  body. 

Desire  to  be  carried  directly  to 
the  cemetery. 

Prayer  to  be  buried  with  the  poor. 


M.  Guerry  has  a  large  collection  of  these  papers,  which  published 
simply  as  they  are,  would  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  modem 
publications. 

G2 


148  CHARACTERISTICS. 

Here  we  find  men — "  fearing  to  want  courage," — 
*'  feeling  that  they  are  becoming  reckless  on  earth," 
— "  disgusted  with  life," — "  insulting  the  ministers  of 
religion," — "  thinking  of  debauch  and  libertinage," — 
"  wishing  to  have  their  letters  published  in  the  news- 
papers,"— "  boasting  that  they  die  men  of  honour," — 
"giving  instructions  for  their  funerals."  Mark  what 
these  sentences  contain !  Mark  the  vanity,  the  frivol- 
ity which  do  not  shrink  before  the  tomb.  Mark  the 
passions,  so  light,  so  ridiculous,  so  strong ! — the  pas- 
sion which  points  a  pistol  to  the  brain,  and  dictate 
at  the  same  moment  a  paragraph  to  the  "  Constitution- 
nel  !"* 

Any  one  little  given  to  the  study  of  these  subjects 
would  hardly  imagine  that  the  method  by  which  a 
person  destroys  himself  is  almost  as  accurately  and 
invariably  defined  by  his  age  as  the  seasons  are  by  the 
sun.  So  it  is,  notwithstanding,  if  we  may  rely  upon 
M.  Guerry's  experience. 

The  young  hang  themselves  ;  arrived  at  a  maturer 
age  they  usually  blow  out  their  brains ;  as  they  get 
old  they  recur  again  to  the  juvenile  practice  of  sus- 
pension. 

The  tables  annexed  give  the  number  of  persons 
who  kill  themselves  by  the  pistol  and  the  halter ;  their 
age  is  indicated  at  the  base,  and  a  little  above  is  the 
proportion  which  these  numbers  bear  to  the  total 
number  of  observations  taken  upon  one  thousand. 

I  have  gone  thus  into  the  details  of  M.  Guerry's  work 
now  before  me,t  first,  because  I  think  so  important 

*  This  paper  seems,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the  paper  in  which 
suicides  are  most  anxious  to  be  recorded.. 

t  There  are  other  facts  in  M.  Guerry's  work  to  which  I  do  not 
allude,  but  which  are  still  interesting.  From  his  statements  in  re- 
spect to  education,  it  appears  that  from  1815  to  1827  the  number  of 
persons  receiving  instruction  had  so  far  augmented  as  to  furnish  in  the 
most  enlightened  arondissements  of  the  north-east  (where  there  are 
the  universities  of  Mentz,  Strasbourg,  Douai,  and  Dijon),  one  boy 
going  to  school  in  every  11,  12,  and  15  inhabitants — instead  of  one  in 
14,  15,  16,  and  17  inhabitants  ;  and  so  in  the  districts  of  Angers,  Or- 
leans, Rennes,  and  Clermont,  where  there  is  the  least  instruction, 
for  one  boy  going  to  school  in  113,  126,  190,  158,  and  167  inhabitants 
in  1819,  there  was  in  1827  one  m  every  74,  92,  128, 150,  and  159.    But 


CRIME  149 

an  attempt  to  carry  certain  rules  into  those  departments 
of  morals  and  jurisprudence,  which  have  hitherto  been 
vaguely  treated  and  considered,  would  be,  whether 
successful  or  unsuccessful,  well  worthy  our  deepest 
attention  ;  and,  secondly,  because  I  feel  greatly  dis- 
posed to  concur  in  the  majority  of  M.  Guerry's  conclu- 
sions. This  disposition,  I  own,  is  not  merely  founded 
upon  a  faith  inspired  by  the  calculations  1  have  sub- 
mitted to  the  reader.  I  do  not  feel  that  faith  in  such 
calculations  which  many  do.  But  in  this  instance,  the 
results  which  M.  Guerry  has  given  are  those  which 
the  ordinary  rules  of  nature  and  observation  would 
teach  me  to  believe. 

A  philosopher,  writing  on  history,  once  said,  that 
statues,  and  monuments,  and  triumphal  arches  were 
only  to  be  received  as  credible  witnesses  when  the 
facts  which  they  pretended  to  commemorate  were 
likely  to  be  true.  This  is  about  the  manner  in  which, 
under  the  necessity  of  quoting  from  very  imperfect 
sources,  I  usually  consider  the  figures  of  most  statists. 
But  what  does  M.  Guerry  prove  ?  Those  facts  which 
he  demonstrates  as  most  probable  are  facts  which  we 
were  taught,  centuries  before  the  kind  of  tables  which 
he  gives  us,  to  believe.  It  is  the  wife  who  wrongs 
the  husband,  or  the  husband  who  wrongs  the  wife,  that 

the  schools  which  in  England  receive  a  third  of  the  pubhc  donations 
receive  in  France  but  a  thirtieth ;  and  in  seventeen  departments  there 
was  not,  during  the  space  of  ten  years,  one  gift  or  bequest  to  an  in- 
stitution of  tliis  description.  This  leads  me  to  remark  that  there  are 
some  curious  statements  in  M.  Guerry's  work  respecting  donations, 
more  especially  as  they  concern  the  clergy  and  the  poor.  From 
these  it  would  appear  that  the  wealthiest  and  most  enlightened  prov- 
mces  make  the  greatest  number  of  donations  to  the  clergy,  and  that 
the  most  ignorant  provinces  make  the  fewest  donations  to  anybody. 
Where  there  are  the  most  crimes  against  the  person,  the  most  priests, 
there  the  most  is  given  to  the  poor. 

More  than  half  of  the  bequests  and  gifts  that  take  place  are  for  the 
benefit  of  this  class  (the  poor),  and  the  support  of  hospitals,  and  other 
beneficent  establishments  ;  and,  contrary  to  general  belief,  it  would 
appear,  1st,  that  the  gi-eatest  number  of  charitable  contributors  are 
of  the  male  sex  ;  2dly,  that  instead  of  the  priests  wringing  what  is 
left  to  them  from  the  dying  sinner,  it  is  the  poor  who  gain  the  most 
by  testament,  and  the  clergy  the  most  by  donation. 
13* 


150  CHARACTERISTICS. 

in  ninety-four  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  adds  murder  to 
adultery.  The  profound  author  of  the  Prince  divined 
on  a  large  scale  what  M.  Guerry  has  just  established 

on  a  small  one ! The  dogma,  too  beautiful 

to  be  true,  that  wealth  and  knowledge  are  incompatible 
with  crime,  stood  opposed  to  every  page  of  history 
that  ever  pretended  to  portray  the  character  of  man- 
kind. It  is  refuted  by  figures ;  it  is  by  figures  only 
that  men  would  have  dared  or  attempted  to  assert  it. 

The  earliest  philosophers  and  legislators  had  con- 
demned, on  the  score  of  policy  and  morality,  those 
sexual  disorders  on  which  Christ  set  the  seal  of  divine 
reprobation,  and  which  we  are  now  for  the  millionth 
time  shown  to  be  injurious  to  the  well-being  of  society. 
The  influence  exercised  by  climate  and  race  is  a  doc- 
trine as  ancient  as  the  separation  of  the  sons  of  Noah. 
One  stands  amazed  at  the  slow  progress  of  intelligence 
when  one  sees  it  necessary  to  prop  up  these  old  and 
hackneyed  precepts  with  new  authority 

So  much  for  the  facts  that  concern  mankind  in 
general :  as  for  those  which  relate  to  France  in  par- 
ticular, M.  Guerry's  calculations  conform,  for  the  most 
part,  with  the  views  that  a  rational  observer  would 
have  taken.  He  paints  the  population  of  France 
active  and  industrious  in  the  north ;  indolent,  passion- 
ate, charitable  in  the  south  ;  ignorant,  honest,  reli- 
gious, and  attached  to  their  parents  in  the  centre ; 
while  in  Paris  we  find,  as  we  might  have  supposed,  a 
people  universally  sensual,  and  easily  disgusted  with 
life.  This  is  what  we  should  have  said  without  seeing 
M.  Guerry's  tables — this  is  what  his  tables  teach  us. 

I  do  not,  by  these  observations,  mean  to  depreciate 
the  class  of  works  which  I  have  been  considering ;  it 
has,  undoubtedly,  its  peculiar  merits  ;  but  I  see  people 
of  the  present  day  insensible  to  its  defects — astonished 
when  a  truth  is  proved  to  them  by  ciphers — credulous 
when  an  error  is  similarly  asserted,  and  falling  per- 
petually  into  trivialities,  absurdities,  and  superficiali- 
ties, merely  because  they  think  that  nothing  can  be 


CRIMK.  151 

absurd,  trivial,  or  superficial  which  puts  on  a  business- 
like appearance.* 

The  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  material 
as  they  were,  were  not  quite  so  material  as  we  have 
become.  Every  argument  now  used  must  appeal  to 
the  senses ;  no  doctrine  is  worth  a  farthing  that  does 
no|;  march  boldly  forth,  supported  by  figures.  The 
orator,  the  philosopher,  and  even  the  novelist  address 
themselves  "to  facts,"  Facts,  no  doubt,  are  the 
necessary  basis  of  general  truths — but  figures  are  not 
always  facts ;  figures,  impossible  to  contradict,  are 
very  frequently  contradicted  in  politics  as  in  science, 
by  the  mere  absurdities  they  prove.  For  instance, 
by  a  subsidy  granted  to  Philip  de  Valois  (1328),  it 
would  appear  that  there  were  at  that  time  eight  mil- 
lions of  hearths,  or  families,  in  the  countries  which 
at  present  compose  France  ;  eight  millions  of  families, 
at  the  moderate  calculation  of  four  persons  to  a  family, 
would  give  thirty-two  millions  of  inhabitants,  the  whole 
population  of  France  at  the  present  time.  Voltaire 
cites  this  absurdity;  in  similar  absurdities  history 
abounds. 

But  M.  Guerry's  volume,  as  well  from  the  ability 
of  that  gentleman  as  from  the  conscientious  scruples 
with  which  all  his  inquiries  are  conducted,  is  the  most 
valuable  work  of  this  description  which  exists,  or 
which  we  can  hope  for  many  years  to  see,  respecting 
the  country  on  which  I  am  writing. 

Let  me  then  return  to  the  investigation  I  set  out 
with,  viz.  "  how  far  what  he  says  of  the  crimes,  con- 
curs with  what  I  have  said  of  the  pleasures,  of  the 
French." 

Do  we  find  no  connection  between  the  gallantry 
which  formed  the  subject  of  a  former  chapter  and  the 
contents  of  this  chapter  ?  See  we  nothing  to  remark 
in  the  rapes  of  young  men  upon  adults,  in  the  rapes 

*  How  often  do  we  find  a  manufacture  or  a  country  in  that  singu- 
lar condition  which  poor  Pope  so  happily  described  when,  turning 
jfrora  his  doctor  to  his  friend,  he  said,  "  Alas  !  my  dear  sir,  I'm 
dying  every  day  of  the  most  favourable  symptoms." 


152  CHARACTERISTICS. 

of  old  men  upon  children,  in  the  female  poisonings 
attendant  upon  adultery,  in  the  immense  population 
perishing  in  the  enfans  trouves  ?     Is  there  no  con- 
nection between  the  vanity  I  formerly  spoke  of  and 
the  hatred  and  the  vengeance  which  dictate  so  many 
crimes,  and  the  disgust  for  life  which  leads  to  so  many 
suicides  I     Is  there  no  connection  between  the  gay, 
and  unthinking,  and  frivolous  disposition  which  pre- 
sides over  the  follies  of  the  French,  and  the  careless- 
ness and  recklessness  of  human  life  which  swells  the 
calendar  of  their  guilt,  and  opens  so  remarkable,  so 
terrible   a  chapter  in  the  history  of  human  nature  1 
This  inquiry  I  do  not  venture  to  pursue  :  my  object  is, 
noi  to  establish  doctrines,  but  to  awake  attention.     And 
now,  having  hastily  and  feebly,  but  not,  I  trust,  inac- 
curately, sketched  some  of  the  principal  features  of 
French  character,  such  as  it  appears  before  me,  may  I 
hope  to  lead  my  reader  back  to  some  of  the  later  pas- 
sages in  French  history,   from  which  we  must  not 
wholly  divide  the   present,  to  some  of  those  many 
rapidly  succeeding  changes,  out  of  which  a  new  people, 
different  but  not  separate  from  the  old  people,  have 
grown  up  ?  for  this  I  am  anxious  to  do,  holding  it  im- 
possible to  speculate  with  any  security  on  the  future 
of  a  nation  of  which  we  have  not  studied  the  past. 


END   OF   BOOK   I. 


BOOK    II. 

HISTORICAL   CHANGES. 


"  Men  will  never  see  far  into  posterity  who  do  not  sometimes  looK 
backward  to  their  ancestors." 

Burke. 

"Je  veux  parler  de  la  condition  materielle  de  la  societe,  des 
changemens  materiels  introduits  dans  la  maniere  d'etre  et  de  vivre 
des  hommes,  par  un  fait  rrouveau,  par  une  revolution,  par  un  nouvel 
^tat  social." 

GUIZOT. 

G3 


HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 


OLD  REGIME. 

It  IS  at  Versailles  that  you  can  best  understand  the  old  r§gime — The 
monarchy  overturned  by  the  first  revolution,  the  monarchy  of 
Louis  XIV. — Faults  that  he  committed — Character  of  his  suc- 
cessors — The  alchymist  and  the  cook — Necessity  of  maintaining 
the  court  nobility  in  pubUc  opinion  by  war — Impossibility  of  doing 
so — Many  circumstances  hastened  what  Louis  XV.  foresaw — 
Colbert,  Law,  Voltaire — Review  of  the  revolution  and  the  old 
regime— Definition  of  the  old  "regime" — What  Louis  XV^ 
might  have  done — The  court  formed  by  the  old  nobility — The 
monarch  impoverished,  and  obliged  to  satisfy  the  former  adherents 
of  that  nobility — The  destruction  of  the  great  aristocracy  burthened 
the  monarch  with  the  vices  of  the  gentry — The  wrath  of  the  people 
delivered  the  nation  into  the  hands  of  the  mob — The  good  which 
came  out  of  evil. 

Relieve  yon  palace  from  the  century  with  which  its 
royal  dome  is  overcharged — light  up  those  vast  apart- 
ments, gorgeous  in  paintings  and  gold — open  wide 
those  stately  and  solemn  doors, — crowd  with  a  gay 
throng  of  courtiers  that  wide  flight  of  marble  steps,  down 
which  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Hapsbourg,  a  queen 
of  France,  half  naked,  was  once  seen  to  fly — Give  for 
a  moment,  give  its  ancient  splendour  to  the  palace 
where  you  are  still  haunted  by  the  memory  of  Louis 
XIV.  It  is  at  Versailles,  as  you  gaze  on  those  stifl" 
and  stately  gardens,  on  that  large  and  spacious  court, 
on  those  immense  buildings,  still  decorated  with  their 
title  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold,  '*  Les  e  curies  du  Roi" — 
it  is  at  Versailles,  as  you  stand  between  the  five  roads 
which  quit  the  royal  gates  for  Spain,  Italy,  Paris,  Ger- 
many, and  England — it  is  at  Versailles  that  you  under- 
stand the  genius  of  the  ancient  "  regime,"  such  as  it 
existed  in  the  head  of  its  founder. 


156  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

I  call  Louis  XIV.  its  founder:  for  the  monarchy 
which  the  revolution  of  1789  overthrew  was  the  mon- 
archy of  Louis  XIV.,  who  made  of  a  great  fief  a  great 
kingdom,  and  destroyed  the  feudal  government  of  eight 
centuries,  which  Richelieu  had  already  undermined. 
The  ancient  monarchy  was  of  a  mixed  nature,  and  the 
sovereign  might  be  said  to  share  his  power  with  the 
nobility,  the  magistracy,  and  the  clergy  of  the  realm. 
Louis  XIV.  simplified  the  system,  and  said, "  I  am  the 
state."  He  said  it  with  impunity.  In  the  camp  and 
the  court,  the  nobility  had  sacrificed  their  independ- 
ence :  weakened  by  the  unsuccessful  struggles  of  the 
Fronde,  the  parliament  had  not  attempted  to  resist  their 
youthful  master's  indignation :  the  clergy  were  sub- 
dued when  they  renounced  the  distribution  of  their 
possessions ;  and  the  silence  which  reigned  every- 
where was  the  sign  of  universal  submission. 

The  vowed  enemy  of  revolutions,  this  great  king 
acted  the  part  of  a  revolutionist ;  a  part  dangerous  for 
prince  or  people.  The  violence  of  the  mob  placed  the 
dictatorship  in  the  hands  of  Cromwell  and  Napoleon ; 
the  absolute  doctrines  of  their  predecessors  led  Charles 
I.  and  Louis  XVI.  to  the  scaffold.  In  concentrating 
the  power  of  the  kingdom  in  the  monarch,  Louis  XIV. 
united  all  the  faults  of  his  government  with  the  exist- 
ence of  the  monarchy,  and  made  the  force  of  the  mon- 
archy depend  upon  the  force  of  an  individual — the 
crown  became  too  weighty  to  wear,  and  even  he  who 
made  it  what  it  was  could  only  support  it  during  the 
pride  and  strength  of  his  youth. 

The  character  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  a  prince  to 
whose  capacity  posterity  has  not  rendered  justice,  was 
still  the  character  of  all  others  least  likely  to  infuse 
vigour  into  a  system  already  travailed  by  decay.  Less 
affrighted  by  dangers  than  difficulties,  and  easily  cap- 
tivated by  any  novelty  that  had  originality  to  recom- 
mend it,  his  government  was  a  series  of  harassing  in- 
trigues to  avoid  trouble,  a  continuation  of  dangerous 
expedients  to  avoid  distress.  The  edifice,  which  de- 
pended for  its  safety  on  the  preservation  of  the  solemn 


OLD    REGIME.  157 

grandeur  that  had  presided  over  its  foundation,  he 
attempted  to  sustain  by  the  brilliant  tricks  of  a  versa- 
tile address,  and  Europe  was  for  a  while  amused  by  a 
profligate  and  clever  buflbon,  who,  in  the  masquerade 
of  a  cardinal,  represented  the  stately  and  decorous 
monarchy  of  Louis  XIV. 

In  the  amusements  of  the  regent,  and  of  his  suc- 
cessor— in  the  pursuits  of  the  alchymist  and  the  cook, 
you  may  discover  the  genius  which  accompanied  them 
into  more  serious  affairs.  The  indolent  epicureanism 
of  Louis  XV.  sanctioned  as  a  system  that  which  under 
the  regency  was  tolerated  as  a  transient  disorder. 
The  eccentric  debauch  of  the  one  consolidated  itself 
into  the  regulated  profligacy  of  the  other,  and  the  court 
which  awed  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  by  its  cere- 
monious pride,  which  astonished  during  the  regency 
by  its  mysterious  vices,  disgusted  under  the  succeed- 
ing reign  by  its  insolent  and  dissolute  manners.  Be- 
sides, to  sustain  a  nobility  void  of  all  civil  resources, 
and  arrogant  only  in  the  exclusive  privilege  of  wearing 
a  sword,  it  was  necessary  to  bring  that  nobility  fre- 
quently before  the  nation  on  the  field  of  battle ;  and, 
indeed,  we  find  it  pardoned,  if  not  beloved,  by  a  vain 
and  military  people,  when  it  mingled  valour  with  volup- 
tuousness, ambition  with  frivolity,  chivalry  with  love. 

But  as  war  is  carried  on  in  modern  times,  it  cannot 
be  maintained  without  considerable  expense,  and  every 
year  increases  the  necessity  and  the  danger  of  making 
peace.  The  condition,  therefore,  on  which  such  a  sys- 
tem was  based,  rendered  it,  under  the  present  military 
system,  difficult  of  duration.  The  nobility,  caged  in 
the  court,  were  likely  to  find  themselves  opposed  by 
the  great  body  of  the  people  ;  and  the  sovereign,  if  he 
identified  himself  with  the  nobility,  was  likely  to  share 
the  fate  of  an  impotent  and  insolent  aristocracy,  whose 
pretensions  he  had  left,  and  whose  power  he  had  de- 
stroyed. 

Undoubtedly  many  circumstances  hastened  this  con- 
clusion, which  the  eye  of  Louis  XV.,  less  improvident 
than  his  disposition,  had  from  afar  dimly  foreseen. 
14 


158  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

The  more  indeed  that  we  look  at  the  events  of  those 
times,  the  more  we  are  struck  by  the  variety  of  ele- 
ments which  were  working  towards  the  same  result. 
The  commercial  prosperity  which  rose  with  the  wis- 
dom and  economy  of  Colbert,  the  commercial  ruin 
which  followed  the  scientific  but  terrible  operations  of 
Law,  were  equally  favourable  to  that  moneyed  nobility 
by  whom  the  first  revolution  was  aided,  and  to  whom 
the  second  revolution  belongs.  More  than  this  ;  the 
poetical  vanity  of  Richelieu,  the  domineering  arrogance 
of  Louis  XIV.,  the  intriguing  character  of  the  regent, 
the  weak  and  indolent  disposition  of  Louis  XV.,  all 
concurred  in  hastening  the  advancement  of  a  new  no- 
bility, destined  to  be  still  more  formidable  to  the  ancient 
order  of 'things,  and  which  has,  in  fact,  changed  the 
destiny  of  a  great  part  of  the  world. 

Flattering  the  passions,  and  associating  itself  with 
the  tastes,  literature  finally  overthrew  the  interests  of 
the  great.  The  doctrines,  which  delivered  from  a 
philosophic  chair  would  have  been  punished  and  pro- 
hibited, insinuated  the'mselves  into  favour  by  the  ele- 
gance of  a  song,  the  point  of  an  epigram,  or  the  elo- 
quence of  the  stage :  conducted  less  by  systematic 
artifice  than  casual  interest,  the  writer  who  abused  the 
class  praised  the  individual ;  and  the  same  man,  who 
from  the  solitude  of  Ferney  breathed  destruction  to  the 
clergy,  the  monarchy,  and  the  court,  dedicated  a  poem 
to  a  pope,  corresponded  with  an  empress,  and  was  the 
unblushing  panegyrist  of  a  fashionable  debauche  and 
a  royal  mistress.  Thus  were  there  two  new  classes, 
the  one  powerful  for  its  wealth,  the  other  more  mighty 
for  its  intelligence,  in  tacit  league  against  the  existing 
order  of  things — an  order  of  things  from  which  they 
had  sprung,  but  which,  having  been  formed  at  a  time 
when  they  were  hardly  in  existence,  offered  them  no 
legitimate  place  in  society  equal  to  that  which  they 
found  themselves  called  upon  to  assume.  It  was  by 
the  side  of  galleys  crowded  with  musicians,  and  deco- 
rated with  flowers,  that  you  might  once  have  seen  the 
sombre  vessel  destined  to  bring  to  France  the  pesti- 


OLD    REGIME.  159 

lence*  which  had  been  merited  by  her  crimes  ;  and  so 
with  the  prosperity  and  the  glory  of  the  golden  days  of 
the  ancient  "  regime,"  with  its  commerce  and  with  its 
arts,  came  on,  darkly  and  unnoticed,  the  just  but  terri- 
ble revolution  of  1789. 

For  many  years  it  has  been  the  custom  to  pick  up 
our  recollections  of  the  ancient  "  regime"  out  of  the 
ruins  of  the  Bastille,  or  to  collect  our  materials  for  the 
history  of  the  revolution  from  the  dungeons  of  the 
Conciergerie  and  La  Force.  The  time  is  come  when 
the  writer  is  bound  to  be  more  impartial,  and  to  allow 
that  there  was  a  certain  glory  and  greatness  in  the  an- 
cient monarchy,  a  strict  justice,  and  an  almost  inevit- 
able necessity,  in  the  catastrophe  which  overwhelmed 
it.  Of  the  revolution  I  shall  speak  presently.  What  I 
have  to  say  of  the  ancient  "  regime"  will  be  confined 
to  a  few  remarks.  A  writer,  whose  essay  on  the  mon- 
archy of  Louis  XIV.  is  at  once  calculated  to  impress 
posterity  with  a  just  idea  of  the  ancient  history  and 
the  modern  genius  of  the  French  people,  has  said, — 

"  Cette  monarchic  pent  etre  ainsi  definie  ;  une  roy- 
aute  absolue  et  dispendieuse,  severe  pour  le  peuple, 
hostile  envers  I'etranger,  appuyee  sur  I'armee,  sur  la 
police,  sur  la  gloire  du  roi,  et  temperee  par  la  justice 
du  monarque  et  par  la  sagesse  de  ses  conseils  choisis 
dans  les  differens  ordres  de  I'etat,  et  par  le  besoin  de 
menager  pour  la  guerre  et  pour  rimp6t  le  nombre  et 
la  fortune  de  ses  sujets."  This  sentence  comprises 
the  spirit  of  a  military  system  which,  as  I  have  said 
before,  depended  upon  the  personal  character  of  its 
chief.  Scratch  out  the  words  "dispendieuse"  and 
"  severe  ;"  read  "  une  royaute  absolue  mais  ^conomique, 
douce  pour  le  peuple,""  and  you  have,  what  may  be  said 
with  some  propriety  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  not  an 
unpopular  government  with  an  enlightened  people  at 


*  The  Chevalier  d'0rl6ans,  natural  son  of  the  regent  and  grand 
prior  of  Malta,  was  returning  from  Genoa,  whither  he  had  escorted 
his  sister.  By  the  side  of  his  galleys  floated  several  vessels,  which, 
coming  from  a  port  in  Syria,  carried  into  France  the  plague,  which 
desolated  Marseilles. 


160  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

the  present  day,  and  a  government  peculiarly  adapted 
to  many  characteristic  dispositions  of  the  French.  It 
was  into  something  like  the  Prussian  government  that 
Louis  XVI.  might  perhaps  have  converted  his  own. 

The  expenses  of  the  crown,  the  privileges  of  the 
nobility,  the  venality  of  places,  the  frequent  imprison- 
ments, and  the  excessive  charges  of  the  people — these 
were  faults  incompatible  with  the  welfare  of  a  nation, 
but  not  necessarily  combined  with  the  haughty  prerog- 
atives of  the  crown.  By  diminishing  the  useless  ex- 
penses of  the  court,  the  army  might  more  easily  have 
been  supported ;  by  equally  dividing  the  burthens 
of  the  state,  the  commons  might  have  become  recon- 
ciled to  the  nobility ;  and  by  uniting  the  army  with 
the  nation,  and  thus  avoiding  the  necessity  of  display- 
ing the  valour  of  one  class  in  order  to  appease  the  dis- 
content of  another,  the  military  system  might  have 
become  one  of  defence  instead  of  one  of  aggression. 
By  these  means,  doubtless,  the  ancient  monarchy 
might  have  been  rendered  tolerable,  and  its  destruc- 
tion prevented  or  deferred.  Its  faults,  if  you  do  not 
consider  the  court  as  part  of  the  constitution,  were 
faults  chiefly  of  administration,  but  were  faults  insep- 
arable from  the  court.  The  great  misfortune  entailed 
by  the  destruction  of  the  great  nobility  was  the  crea- 
tion of  this  court.  In  other  respects,  the  policy  of 
Louis  XIV.,  dangerous  to  himself  and  to  his  descend- 
ants, was  not,  upon  the  whole,  so  disadvantageous  to 
his  people. 

The  simplicity  which  he  introduced,  productive  of 
despotism,  was  also  productive  of  order, — the  indis- 
putable necessity  of  a  state  that  wishes  to  advance 
and  to  improve.  In  hfs  reign  the  streets  of  Paris  were 
regularly  lighted,  and  an  effective  police  created. 
The  arts,  as  an  embellishment  to  the  monarchy,  were 
cultivated ;  commerce,  as  the  means  of  supporting  a 
more  regular  state  of  warfare,  was  encouraged ;  and 
during  the  time  that  the  genius  of  him  who  had  ope- 
rated the  change  was  equal  to  preside  over  it,  France 
obtained  a  prosperity  which  it  required  a  long  series 


OLD    REGIME.  161 

of  disasters  to  overthrow.  Even  the  great  vice  of 
Louis  XIV.  was  not  without  its  advantages.  The  im- 
mense buildings  in  which  so  much  was  lavishly  ex- 
pended, useful  in  promoting  a  taste  for  architecture, 
which  has  since  tended,  not  merely  to  the  embellish- 
ment, but  to  the  health  and  comfort  of  France  and  Eu- 
rope (for  its  effects  extended  far),  was  also  useful  in 
creating  that  power  and  majesty  of  thought  which, 
proceeding  from  the  admiration  of  what  is  great,  and 
the  conquest  of  what  is  diflicult,  is,  under  proper  reg- 
ulation and  control,  a  mighty  element  in  the  composi- 
tion of  any  state  which  aspires  to  a  high  place  among 
the  royal  dynasties  of  the  world. 

Seen,  then,  from  afar,  where  its  outlines  are  only 
dimly  visible,  there  is  much  in  the  ancient  "  regime" 
to  admire  as  well  as  to  accuse.  But  penetrate  more 
into  the  subtile  mechanism  of  the  political  machine, 
turn  from  the  sovereign  to  his  servants,  from  the  de- 
sign of  the  government  to  the  vices  of  the  administra- 
tion,— vices  inter.woven  and  inseparably  connected 
each  with  the  other ;  follow  out  the  court  into  its  va- 
rious ramifications,  from  the  "  noblesse"  to  the  "  nobi- 
lace,"  it  is  there  that  you  find  faults  impossible  to  con- 
tinue, and  yet  almost  impossible  to  amend. 

The  impoverishment  of  the  high  aristocracy  threw 
thirty  thousand  noble  paupers  upon  the  community,  for 
whom  forty  thousand  places  were  created.  Here  was 
the  formidable  body  united  in  the  support  of  abuses, 
and  connecting,  if  supported  by  the  crown,  those  abuses 
with  its  majesty  and  prerogatives.  The  monarch  must 
have  been  no  ordinary  man  to  have  attacked  such  a 
cortege,  the  representatives  of  his  authority,  the  crea- 
tures of  his  bounty,  and  the  organs  of  that  public  opin- 
ion which  circulated  about  his  person.  The  people, 
on  the  other  hand,  long  since  forgetful  of  the  benefits 
it  originally  conferred,  could  no  longer  endure  a  sys- 
tem which,  founded  on  the  ideas  of  foreign  conquest 
and  domestic  tranquillity,  had  not  even  glory  to  offer 
as  an  excuse  for  the  injustice,  the  extravagance,  and 
insecurity  that  it  contained. 
14* 


102  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

In  the  history  of  all  nations,  an  invisible  hand  seems 
ever  mingling  with  human  affairs,  and  events  appa- 
rently the  most  distant  and  inseparable  are  linked  mys- 
teriously together.  Louis  XIV.  founded  an  absolute 
system  of  order  on  the  ruins  of  a  powerful  noblesse, 
for  whose  adherents  he  is  thus  obliged  to  provide. 
The  evil  attendant  on  a  greater  good  produces  in  turn 
its  calamity  and  advantages.  The  destruction  of  the 
great  aristocracy  burdened  the  monarch  with  the  vices 
of  the  gentry,  and  the  wrath  of  the  people  delivered 
the  nation  for  a  time  into  the  hands  ojf  the  mob. 

The  fanatics  who  traversed  the  unnatural  career  of 
those  gloomy  times  have  passed  away,  and  produced 
nothing  in  their  generation  for  the  immediate  benefit 
of  mankmd.  But  Providence,  ever  watchful  for  futu- 
rity, was  even  then  preparing  its  events.  The  terri- 
ble philosophers  of  the  "  salut  public,"  like  the  hus- 
bandman in  the  fable  of  jEsop,  dug  for  a  treasure  im- 
possible to  find :  but  as  the  husbandman,  by  reason  of 
stirring  the  mould  about  his  vines,  so  fertilized  the  soil 
as  to  make  it  abundant  to  his  successors  ;  so  these 
rash  and  mistaken  philosophers,  in  quest  of  impossible 
advantages,  produced  ulterior  benefits,  and  while  they 
lost  their  labour,  enriched  posterity  by  the  vanity  of 
their  search. 


REVOLUTION    OF  EIGHTY-NINE  163 


REVOLUTION  OF  EIGHTY-NINE. 

The  procession  of  the  States-General  at  Versailles— The  conse- 
quences of  Richelieu's  policy — All  classes  demanded  the  States- 
General — Each  had  a  different  object — The  conduct  of  the  people, 
of  the  parliament,  of  the  army — Mirabeau's  death,  and  flight  of 
Louis  XVI. — Character  of  the  National  Assembly — Character  of 
Mirabeau — What  could  have  saved  Louis  XVL — The  factions 
of  the  revolution  hke  the  priests  of  the  temple  at  Rome,  who  be- 
came the  successors  of  the  man  they  murdered — Conduct  of  the 
Girondists — Character  of  the  Mountain — Character  of  Robespierre. 

Many  can  yet  remember  the  day  when  through  the 
streets  of  Versailles — through  the  streets  of  that  royal 
Versailles,  whose  pomp,  when  I  spoke  of  the  olden 
monarchy,  I  was  desirous  to  restore  ; — many  can  even 
now  remember  the  day  when  through  those  streets — 
here  conspicuous  for  their  violet  robes  or  snow-white 
plumes  ;  there  for  their  dark,  modest,  and  citizen-like 
attire — marched  in  solemn  order  the  States-General ; 
the  men  to  whom  had  been  confided  the  happiness  and 
the  destinies  of  France.  This  was  the  first  scene  of 
the  revolution,  then  on  the  eve  of  being  accomplished. 
For  the  philosopher  had  prepared  an  age  of  action  as 
the  poet  had  prepared  an  age  of  philosophy. 

One  of  the  consequences  of  the  policy  of  Richelieu 
and  Louis  XIV.  was,  that  having  made  the  crown  the 
spoliator  of  every  class  in  the  kingdom,  every  class 
imagined  it  had  something  to  gain  by  despoiling  the 
crown.  The  Parliament  of  Paris,  which  had  once  as- 
sisted the  king  against  the  aristocracy  of  the  sword, 
passed  natiirally  over  to  the  people  on  that  aristocracy 
being  subdued,  and  raised  at  every  interval,  when  the 
weakness  of  the  sovereign  or  the  force  of  the  subject 
gave  it  power,  the  standard  of  magisterial  revolt.  The 
noblesse  de  Vepie  themselves,  imbued  with  that  respect 
for  their  ancestors,  which  hereditary  honours  always 
inspire,  looked  back  with  jealousy  to  a  time  when  their 


164  HISTORICAL   CHANGES. 

iivniiiies  enjoyed  a  kind  of  feudal  independence,  and 
felt  something  like  pleasure  in  the  humiliations  of  a 
power  by  which  their  own  consequence  had  been 
humbled.  Every  class  saw  a  chance,  in  the  convoca- 
tion of  the  States-General,  for  asserting  its  own  privi- 
leges ;  every  class  therefore  demanded  that  convoca- 
tion.* But  the  different  motives  which  induced  all 
parties  to  unite  for  this  common  object  separated  them 
as  soon  as  it  was  attained.  The  differing  factions 
commenced  a  struggle  for  power — ^the  famous  meeting 
at  the  racket  court  decided  to  which  faction  power 
should  belong. 

And  now  the  parliament,  accustomed  to  aid  the 
weaker  party,  united  with  the  crown ;  while  the  mili- 
tary nobility  under  the  Comte  d'Artois  recovered  in 
this  crisis  the  old  spirit  of  their  order,  and  at  the  head 
of  an  army  would  have  rendered  themselves  at  once 
independent  of  the  people  and  the  throne.  The  14th 
of  July,  which  separated  the  officers  from  the  soldiery, 
offered  no  resource  to  this  body  but  a  foreign  camp : 
and  as  the  aristocracy  of  France  united  itself  with  the 
aristocracy  of  Europe,  the  emigration  commenced : 
signal  of  a  war  which  was  to  be  waged  between  two 
opinions. 

The  succeeding  epochs  of  the  revolution  are  at 
short  distances  from  each  other,  and  bring  us  speedily 
to  the  great  catastrophe.  The  natural  consequence 
of  the  events  of  July  confined  the  court  to  Paris,  and 
confirmed  the  power  of  the  assembly :  the  death  of 
Mirabeau  left  Louis  no  alternative  but  an  unconditional 
submission  or  flight;  his  capture  and  his  pardon 
changed  his  condition  from  that  of  a  monarch  who  had 
made  concessions,  into  that  of  a  captive  who  had  to  be 
grateful  for  a  favour,  and  contrite  for  a  fault.  In  this 
situation  the  dissolution  of  the  national  assembly  left 
him. 

With  the  national  assembly  perished  the  best  por- 
tion of  the  revolution — rather  learned  than  wise,  rather 

*  By  the  parliament  and  the  peers  of  France,  by  the  states  of  Dau- 
phiny,  and  by  the  clergy  in  the  assembly  of  Paris. 


REVOLUTION    OF    EIGHTY-NINE.  165 

vain  than  ambitious,  rather  democratic  than  loyal, 
rather  loyal  than  aristocratic — more  profound  than 
practical,  more  zealous  than  able,  more  rhetorical  than 
eloquent — virtuous,  great,  courageous — it  has  left  a 
vast  monument  of  enthusiasm,  energy,  disinterested- 
ness, superb  language,  deep  thought,  and  political  in- 
capacity. 

It  contained  all  that  a  great  nation,  stirred  by  a  noble 
passion,  could  produce,  without  being  educated  for 
affairs — it  proved  the  value  of  that  education ; — with 
more  than  the  ideas  necessary  to  form  a  good  govern- 
ment, it  wanted  the  tact  which,  in  bodies  that  have 
long  existed,  becomes  the  instinct  of  conversation;  and 
in  setting  for  itself  the  trap  in  which  Cromwell  caught 
his  opponents,  displayed  the  most  profound  ignorance 
of  the  variable  nature  of  revolutions  in  general,  as 
well  as  of  the  peculiar  and  characteristic  disposition 
of  the  French  people.*  The  national  assembly  was 
called  upon,  not  merely  to  announce  certain  opinions — 
as  I  have  been  told  in  France  such  opinions  were  al- 
ready announced — it  was  called  upon  to  give  a  durable 
form  to  these  opinions,  and  in  this,  the  most  important 
part  of  its  mission,  it  was  egregiously,  unfortunately, 
and  perhaps  inevitably  unsuccessful. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  upon  this  epoch :  it  was 
then  that  you  might  have  seen  a  man,  his  high  brow 
wrinkled  with  study,  his  eye  haggard  with  debauch — 
there  he  stands  surrounded  by  wild  and  strange  figures, 
in  whose  countenances  you  read,  "  Revenge  upon  our 
oppressors !"  while  their  agitated  lips  pronounce  words 
— destined  to  be  so  terrible,  then  so  pure — "  Liberty, 
justice  for  the  great  masses  of  mankind" — there  he 
stands,  his  large  hand  clenched,  his  broad  chest  ex- 
panded, his  great  head  erect  and  high,  and  rendered 

*  "  Depuis  qu'on  nous  rassassie  de  principes,"  said  Duport,  the 
founder  of  the  Jacobins,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Mountain,  and  the 
most  practical  politician  of  the  assembly ;  "  depuis  qu'on  nous  rassas- 
sie de  principes,  comment  n'est  on  pas  avise  que  la  stabiUt6  est  aussi 
unprincipe  de  gouvernement !  veut-on  exposer  la  France  dont  les 
t^tes  sont  si  ardentes  et  si  mobiles,  a  voir  arriver  tous  les  deux  ans 
una  revolution  dans  les  lois  et  dans  les  opinions." 


166  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

Still  more  terrible  by  the  profusion  of  hair,  artfully  ar- 
ranged, so  as  to  give  effect  to  the  formidable  character 
of  his  person. 

See  him  in  the  club  of  the  Jacobins,  which  rings 
and  resounds  with  his  voice — or  see  him  in  those 
voluptuous  fetes  which  still  linger  about  the  court — in 
a  room  dazzling  with  light,  abounding  in  shaded  al- 
coves ; — see  him  there,  surrounded  by  opera  dancers 
and  actresses,  familiar  with  roues  and  aristocrats,  ner- 
vous under  the  influence  of  wine,  society,  and  love — 
or  see  him  (so  strange  and  so  various  are  the  attributes 
of  this  mortal) — see  him  in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  his 
cabinet,  the  patron,  the  idol,  and  the  preceptor  of  the 
most  studious  and  disciplined  youth  of  his  time — com- 
municating to  them  his  ideas,  profiting  by  their  labours, 
and  preparing,  by  the  severe  application  of  theories 
to  facts,  those  profound  and  passionate  displays  with 
which  he  annihilated  the  ancient  system,  and  would 
have  renovated  the  new  ! 

Such  was  Mirabeau,  without  whom  some  have  ima- 
gined the  revolution  of  eighty-nine  would  not  liave 
been,  by  whom  many  have  deemed  that  revolution 
might  have  been  stopped.  Undoubtedly  this  man  pos- 
sessed a  vast  genius,  and  was  one  of  those  mysterious 
mortals  described  by  Bossuet  as  the  instruments  of 
God's  designs.  Deriving  a  certain  aristocracy  of  ideas 
from  his  birth,  he  took  part  with  the  people  because 
he  had  shared  in  their  oppressions.  Carried  by  the 
same  passions  which  sullied  his  private  life  up  to  the 
loftiest  paths  of  a  public  career — the  intriguing  agent 
at  Berlin,  the  studious  prisoner  at  Vincennes — cour- 
tier, plebeian,  profligate,  patriot — learned,  active,  reso- 
lute— he  was  the  only  man  who,  belonging  to  every 
class,  and  possessing  every  quality  of  his  time,  could 
fully  comprehend  and  concentrate  its  movement. 

A  noble  in  his  democracy,  he  would  have  sacrificed 
the  privileges  and  not  the  titles  of  his  order  ;  he  would 
have  stripped  the  sovereign  of  power,  but  left  him  with 
respect ;  and  while  he  recognised  the  welfare  of  the 
many  as  the  end  of  government,  denounced  the  sove- 


REVOLUTION    OF    EIGHTY-NINE  167 

reignty  of  the  multitude  as  its  curse.  If  he  were  paid 
during  his  later  days  (as  is  almost  certain)  by  the 
court,  he  was  not  bought  by  it.  His  conviction  would 
never  have  carried  the  revolution  further  than  it  had 
been  carried  by  the  national  assembly,  and  the  mise- 
rable debates,  as  to  whether  the  sovereign  should  be 
called  "  Sire,"  or  seated  upon  a  chair,  would  have  ex- 
cited his  contempt  and  his  disgust.  This  was  the 
debate  with  which  the  labours  of  the  legislative  as- 
sembly commenced ;  an  assembly  which,  as  Duport 
predicted,  undertook  a  new  revolution. 

Then  came  the  commencement  of  proscriptions  : 
then  came  the  decrees  against  the  emigrants  and  the 
priests— the  ministry  of  the  Gironde  (the  first  republi- 
cans in  office) — the  insurrection  of  June  (which  was 
to  overturn  the  throne) — the  invasion  of  the  Prussians 
— the  massacres  of  September — and  the  convocation 
of  the  convention.  The  Mountain  was  in  the  conven- 
tion what  the  Gironde  had  been  in  the  legislative  as- 
sembly ;  and  the  king  whom  the  first  dethroned,  the 
second  beheaded. 

Thus  perished  Louis  XVI.,  declaring  that  he  had 
never  harboured  a  thought  against  the  happiness  of  his 
people  :  the  victim  of  his  own  character,  and  of  the 
violence  and  the  necessity  of  his  times.  Few  per- 
sons have  thought  or  written  on  this  event  without 
hazarding  some  opinion  on  the  possibility  or  impossi- 
bility of  preventing  it.  Many  have  supposed  that  if 
the  monarch  had  from  the  first  sternly  resisted  all  re- 
forms, he  would  have  succeeded.  Others  again  have 
imagined  that  if  he  had  yielded  altogether  to  the 
popular  movement,  he  might  have  retained  his  place  as 
the  beloved  constitutional  sovereign  of  his  country. 
Some,  and  Mr.  Burke  among  the  number,  have  ap- 
peared to  think,  that  if  Louis,  not  obstinate  against 
change,  but  prescribing  the  changes  to  take  place,  had 
revived  and  renovated  the  ancient  institutions — or  that 
even  if  the  States-General  themselves  had  done  this — 
by  connecting  the  past  with  the  present,  a  principle  of 
duration  would  have  been  recognised  and  observed  in 


168  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

the  new  system,  which  would  thus  have  adapted  itself 
better  to  the  habits  and  the  wants  of  an  ancient  peo- 
ple, who  had  not  their  history  to  commence,  but  to  con- 
tinue. 

The  first  course  I  deem  altogether  impossible :  be- 
cause to  keep  things  as  they  were  was  to  keep  a  par- 
liament that  refused  to  register  taxes,  a  people  who  re- 
fused to  pay  them  ;  and  a  clergy,  a  nobility,  and  an 
army,  all  the  powers  and  all  the  classes  of  the  state, 
discontented  with  the  authority  which  flattered  no  opin- 
ion, and  could  no  longer  purchase  adherents.  The 
second  course,  plausible  in  theory,  was,  I  fear,  impos- 
sible in  practice  ;  since  it  supposed  that  one  party  would 
be  always  moderate  in  conquest,  and  another  always 
patient  in  defeat.  The  third  course  offered  the  im- 
mense advantage  of  altering  the  spirit  without  chang- 
ing the  nominal  form  of  the  constitution.  If  resorted 
to  at  the  death  of  Louis  XIV, — as  might  have  been  the 
case  if  the  Due  de  Bourgogne  had  been  his  successor 
— it  is  possible  that  the  new  ideas  gradually  arising 
would  gradually  have  infused  themselves  into  a  form 
of  government  which  was  susceptible  of  popular  im- 
provements. But  after  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  of 
Rousseau,  and  of  Voltaire,  to  the  modern  ideas  and  the 
modern  people  who  had  grown  up  nothing  could  have 
appeared  so  new,  so  strange,  and  so  grotesque  as  the 
old  and  forgotten  constitution  which  slumbered  in  the 
tomb  of  Louis  XIII.  The  nobility  might  indeed  have 
received  it ;  it  made  them  more  independent ;  but  it 
■was  against  the  nobility  that  the  nation  murmured. 

More  vain  than  proud,  more  alive  to  personal  affronts 
than  to  public  rights,  enamoured  with  freedom  as  a 
novelty  rather  than  regarding  it  as  a  possession, — less 
the  enemy  of  the  crown  than  of  the  court, — the  nation 
would  have  bowed  to  a  new  tyranny  which  established 
equality  in  its  empire,  sooner  than  to  an  ancient  system 
of  liberty  favourable  to  privileges  and  distinctions. 
Adopting  the  example  of  those  who  had  founded  the 
system  over  which  he  was  called  upon  to  preside — 
still  farther  humbling,  still  more  vigorously  controlling 


REVOLUTION    OF    EIGHTY-NINE.  169 

the  nobility  which  his  great  predecessor  had  humbled 
and  controlled,  Louis  XVI.  might  have  attempted  arbi- 
trarily to  crush  those  vices,  and  to  put  dov^^n  that  inso- 
lence, and  those  pretensions,  which  a  constitution  was 
invoked  to  destroy.  Like  the  savage  but  illustrious 
Czar,  he  might  have  concentrated  a  revolution  in  his 
own  person,  which  would  probably  have  rendered  him 
guilty  of  much  of  that  violence,  and  many  of  these 
crimes,  which  have  discoloured  the  fasts  of  the  repub- 
lic. But  the  enterprise  would  have  been  difficult ;  and 
the  character  of  Louis  XVL  (as  little  suited  for  his 
part  as  that  of  his  predecessors  had  been  for  theirs), 
was  wholly  unequal  to  this  great  and  hardy  design, 
which  he  should  have  had  Napoleon  as  a  general,  Mi- 
rabeau  as  a  minister,  to  have  accomplished. 

The  past  generation  suffered,  the  present  generation 
has  gained,  by  that  king  being  better  and  weaker  than 
the  continuance  of  his  dynasty  required  :  he  had  not 
the  fortune  or  the  genius  to  offer  an  enlightened  des- 
potism ;  and  the  nation,  in  the  natural  evolutions  of 
concession  and  aggression,  arrived  at  a  terrible  re- 
public. 


There  was  a  temple  at  Rome  where,  by  murdering 
the  priest,  you  became  his  successor.  Humanity  shud- 
ders before  a  period  in  history  when  parties  struggling 
for  power  adopted  this  maxim  without  remorse.  First 
came  the  assassination  of  Louis  XVL,  then  that  of  the 
Girondists,  then  that  of  the  Hebertists,  then  that  of  the 
Dantonists,  then  that  of  the  Triumvirate.  Terrible 
calamity  of  a  terrible  epoch — there  is  no  safeguard  in 
a  revolution  from  error  and  from  crime  !  Show  me 
men  more  gifted  with  talents  to  promise  greatness, 
with  virtues  to  promise  justice,  than  that  noble  and  elo- 
quent faction  of  the  Gironde,  that  band  of  eminent  and 
mistaken  men,  who  by  their  brutal  and  insensate  emis- 
saries assaulted  the  palace  of  a  monarch  whose  good- 
ness they  knew,  and  whose  errors  it  was  their  policy 
to  have  forgiven. 

Vol.  L— H  15 


170  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

It  was  thus  that  they  became  the  victims  oi'  L!  sr 
own  example ;  and  in  vain  did  their  leader  in  aiicr- 
times  attempt  to  separate  what  he  called  the  seditious 
insurrections  of  the  Mountain,  from  the  insurrection 
equally  seditious  by  which  his  party  had  momentarily 
obtained  the  execution  of  their  designs.*  The  Gi- 
rondists had  in  view  a  system  of  government  compati- 
ble with  justice  and  society ;  they  did  not  hesitate  at 
committing  a  certain  degree  of  violence  in  favour  of 
that  system.  The  Jacobins  had  in  view  a  system  of 
government  which  man  and  nature  could  not  endure, 
and  they  were  ready  conscientiously  to  perpetrate  any 
crime  which  gave  their  theory  a  chance  of  realization. 
"  De  I'audace,  de  I'audace,  et  encore  de  I'audace,"  said 
Danton ;  "  II  n'y  a  que  les  morts  qui  ne  reviennent 
pas,"  said  Barr^re ;  "  Plus  le  corps  social  transpire 
plus  il  devient  sain,"  said  CoUot  d'Herbois  ;  and  in 
the  midst  of  massacres  and  executions,  by  scaffolds 
and  through  prisons,  over  the  dead  bodies  of  their 
friends,  their  countrymen,  and  their  colleagues,  these 
legislative  frenetics  marched  with  a  cool  and  deter- 
mined step  towards  the  terrible  Liberty,  whose  temple, 
like  that  of  Juggernaut,  was  to  be  known  by  the  im- 
molated victims  with  which  its  road  was  overlain. 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  these  men  a  daring  disposi- 
tion, a  stern  intelligence,  which,  if  under  the  influence 
of  a  less  horrible  delirium,  would  have  rendered  them 
dear  to  France  as  her  national  defenders.  Threat- 
ened at  once  by  foreign  and  civil  war — rebell::on  in 
the  east,  rebellion  in  the  south,  the  Girondists,  the  roy- 
alists in  arms — the  white  flag  flying  from  Toulon,  and 
an  English  fleet  in  the  harbour, — they  never  for  a  mo- 
ment doubted,  hesitated,  or  feared  ; — proving  the  assu- 
rance of  Machiavel,  which  Montesquieu  has  repeated, 
viz.  that  a  nation  is  never  so  powerful  to  a  foreign 


*  "  Vous  etes  libres,  mais  pensez  comme  nons,  ou  nous  vous  d6- 
nonijerons  aux  vengeances  du  penple.  Vous  etes  libres,  mais  as- 
sociez-vous  k  nous  pour  persecuter  les  hommes  dont  vous  redoutez 
la  probity,  et  les  lumiferes,  ou  nous  vous  denon^erons  aux  ven- 
geances du  peuple." — Speech  of  Vergniaud 


REVOLUTION    OF    EIGHTY-NINE.  171 

enemy  us  when  torn  by  civil  dissensions — in  the  midst 
of  enemies  at  home,  they  daringly  threw  down  the 
gauntlet  to  Europe,  and  proved,  by  1,200,000  men  lu 
arms,  that  their  means  and  their  boasts  were  equal. 

There  are  two  historians  who,  dazzled,  as  it  appeats 
to  me,  by  the  courage  and  character  which  these  men 
displayed,  in  circumstances  so  critical,  have  veiled 
their  crimes  under  a  pedantic  fatalism,  have  connected 
by  a  horrid  necessity  their  massacres  with  their  victo- 
ries, and  imagined  that  the  new  principles  of  liberty 
could  not  have  been  defended  at  that  time  from  the 
hostile  cabals  of  the  aristocracy,  but  by  the  most  infer- 
nal system  of  illegality,  espionage,  and  blood.  I  re- 
spect the  character,  I  respect  the  valour  of  the  French 
nation  more  than  either  of  these  authors :  I  do  not 
think  that  the  descendants  of  those  men  who  fought 
under  Bayard  and  Du  Guesclin — I  do  not  think  that  the 
same  race  which  furnished  the  brave  soldiers  of  Henry 
IV.,  and  filled  the  armies  in  the  brilliant  days  of  Louis 
the  Great — I  do  not,  I  cannot  think  that  the  French, 
known  in  every  period  of  their  history  for  their  bra- 
very, their  enthusiasm,  their  hatred  of  a  foreign  yoke, 
were  obliged  to  derive  their  valour  from  their  fears. 
The  Romans  were  better  judges  of  the  sentiment  which 
animates,  and  ought  to  animate,  an  army — when  they 
left  honour  even  to  defeat.  They  felt  that  we  humil- 
iate those  whom  we  threaten  or  whom  we  punish, 
and  that  the  way  to  make  men  capable  of  great  actions 
is  to  show  a  great  generosity  for  their  weaknesses. 

As  for  liberty,  it  does  not  consist  in  planting  trees, 
and  signing  decrees  with  the  names  symbolic  of  a  re- 
public. When  Danton  said,  "  We  are  few  in  number 
—we  must  show  no  mercy,  for  the  sake  of  liberty,  to 
those  who  are  opposed  to  us,"  he  did  not  simply  estab- 
lish a  momentary  despotism  among  his  fellow-citi- 
zens, he  said  that  which  will  favour  despotism  through 
all  ages — he  did  not  merely  inflict  an  injury  upon  his 
countrymen,  he  inflicted  a  severer  injury  upon  his 
principles,  upon  the  principles  professed  by  him  and 
his ;  for  he  sullied  and  rendered  suspicious  those  great 
H2 


172  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

words  which  the  Romans  had  left  us,  and  which  up  to 
that  time  were  fresh  in  all  their  antique  purity — and 
thus  it  is  hardly  wonderful  that  the  crimes  of  Jacobin- 
ism were  said  to  be  paid  by  royal  gold. 

No  one  would  willingly  pause  long  upon  the  events 
f^  this  mysterious  and  awful  epoch.  I  pass  them  gladly 
by — but  there  was  one  man  who,  when  politics  were 
a  game  at  which  the  loser  laid  down  his  head,  took  a 
prominent  part  in  that  terrible  amusement. 

You  who  declaim  against  the  vice  and  venality  of 
Mirabeau  will  be  delighted  to  know  that  this  man  was 
surnamed  the  pure,  the  incorruptible,  the  just.  No 
follies  had  disfigured  his  youth ;  severe,  neat,  careful 
in  his  carriage  and  his  costume,  there  was  none  of 
that  easy  negligence,  of  that  nervous  susceptibility  in 
his  character  or  his  person,  which  marks  and  makes  a 
man  forgetful  of  himself.  In  the  preciseness  of  his 
dress,  you  saw  what  was  uppermost  in  his  opinion. 
In  every  thing  about  him  you  read  the  egotism  which 
reigned  in  his  heart,  and  that  firm  and  unconquerable 
will,  superior  to  all  things,  even  to  genius,  which  ele- 
vated him  above  Vergniaud  and  Danton,  chiefs  of  a 
party  like  himself — more  capable  of  great  enterprises 
— but  less  active,  less  intriguing — their  views  were 
more  vast  than  his,  but  their  views  were  also  more 
obscure,  for  they  knew  not  frequently  at  what  they 
aimed. 

He  never  doubted,  never  for  one  moment  doubted  as 
to  the  object  of  his  endeavours.  It  was  circumscribed, 
concentrated,  clear :  amid  all  the  misery,  all  the  ter- 
ror, all  the  victories,  and  all  the  glories  which  stupified 
the  world,  that  man  saw  nothing  but  the  success,  the 
power  of  one  little  individual — that  individual  was  him- 
self, was  Robespierre.  More  evil  has  been  said  of 
this  triumvir  than  perhaps  he  merited.  The  most 
powerful  of  the  terrible  Mountain,  he  has  frequently 
been  taken  as  its  representative.  The  slayer  of  those 
by  whom  so  many  had  been  slaughtered  ;  the  sole  pos- 
sessor for  a  time  of  the  terrible  machine  which  then 
dictated  the  law ;  the  vanquisher  of  the  Gironde,  which 


REVOLUTION     OF    EIGHTY-^INF .  173 

had  vanquished  the  monarchy ;  the  vanquisher  of  C. 
DesmouUns,  who  had  commenced  the  revohition,  of 
Danton,  whose  name  was  so  terrible  in  its  annals ;  he 
has  been  considered  as  a  person  at  once  more  mar- 
vellous and  more  monstrous  than  he  really  was. 

Robespierre  had  this  great  advantage  in  the  revolu- 
tion, he  arrived  late  in  it.  Too  insignificant  in  the 
national  assembly  for  the  part  he  took  there  to  be  at- 
tached to  his  career,  he  entered  the  convention  at  the 
head  of  a  new  party,  whose  ungratified  ambition  panted 
for  action,  when  the  Girondists,  having  succeeded  in 
their  object,  were  disposed  to  enjoy  in  quiet  the  fruits 
of  the  victory  they  had  obtained.  But  the  Girondists 
could  not  have  gone  so  far  as  they  had  gone  without 
strongly  exciting  the  passions  of  the  people  :  and  when 
the  passions  of  the  people  are  thoroughly  excited,  that 
faction  the  most  violent  soon  becomes  the  most  power- 
ful. In  order  to  understand  the  real  character,  the 
crimes,  and  the  talents  of  Robespierre,  it  is  necessary 
to  say  two  or  three  words  more  of  the  views  of  that 
party  with  which  he  acted. 

When  St.  Just  talked  of  making  justice  and  virtue 
"  the  order  of  the  day,"  he  was  sincere  according  to  his 
comprehension  of  those  terms.  His  idea  was  to  ban- 
ish misery  and  wealth  from  society,  which  he  consid- 
ered the  origin  of  all  vice.  The  St.  Simonians  of  the 
present  day  say  the  same  thing.  But  that  which  the 
St.  Simonians  wish  to  arrive  at  by  means  of  the  pulpit 
and  the  press,  St.  Just  and  Marat  were  determined  to 
arrive  at  by  the  guillotine.  They  did  not  blind  them- 
selves to  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  tyranny  for 
this,  but  they  justified  their  means  by  their  end :  and 
to  sanction  the  one,  made  perpetual  references  to  the 
other. 

These  two  men  were  fanatics,  who  united  the  most 
horrible  crimes  with  the  most  benevolent  intentions. 
Robespierre  was  more  of  an  egotist  than  a  fanatic,  and 
adopting  the  views  of  his  faction  less  from  general 
principles  than  private  ambition,  did  not  carry  them 
to  the  same  insatiate  extent.  We  find  him  mild  at 
15* 


174  rflSTORICAL    CHANGES. 

times  when  his  comrades  are  implacable,  and  it  is  only 
during  the  last  two  months  of  his  reign,  when  he  saw 
a  system  of  blood  indissolubly  connected  with  himself, 
that  he  sent  his  fellow-citizens  by  groups  of  fifty  per 
day  down  to  execution.  Even  then,  however,  he  was 
meditating  a  compromise  ;  and  having  sent  his  brother 
on  an  expedition  into  the  provinces,  would  most  prob- 
ably have  regulated  himself  by  his  advice.  Once 
sensible  of  the  reaction  in  favour  of  order,  he  would 
probably,  if  he  had  lived,  have  attempted  to  restore  it, 
and  accomplished  the  part  with  energy  and  economy 
which  the  Directory  discharged  with  feebleness  and 
waste. 


THE  DIRECTORY. 

The  march  towards  a  new  "  regime"  begun — The  government  of  III. 
— A  system  of  energy  succeeded  by  a  system  of  repose — Up  to  a 
certain  time  fortunate — Could  not  continue  so  when  its  armies 
were  defeated,  its  overthrow  certain,  and  its  successor  sought  for — 
Bonaparte  supplied  the  man  whom  Sieyes  was  in  search  of. 

Robespierre  was  destroyed,  but  the  guillotine  was 
still  furnished  with  victims  ;  and  the  conquest  made  in 
the  name  of  peace  supported  itself  by  terror ;  and  "  the 
golden  youth,"  their  long  hair  dressed  a  la  victime, 
were  seen  running  up  and  down  the  Boulevards,  and 
hunting  their  enemies  with  the  same  cry  of  "Liberty!" 
that  had  presided  over  the  noyades  of  Nantes,  and  the 
executions  of  Paris.  But  the  march  towards  a  new 
regime  now  began ;  after  the  committee  fell  the  Moun- 
tain ;  the  Jacobins  were  cast  down ;  the  Faubourgs 
disarmed  ;  and  the  bust  of  Marat  removed  .from  the 
Pantheon,  as  the  bust  of  Mirabeau  had  been  before  it. 
The  reaction  which  commenced  by  depriving  the 
people  of  power  ended  by  the  appeal  of  the  royalists 
to  arms,  and  from  the  double  defeat  of  the  populace 


THE    DIRECTORY.  175 

and  the  sections  rose  the  constitution  of  III.,  the 
government  of  the  Directory.  The  government  of  the 
Directory  was  the  regency  of  the  republic.  To  the 
system  which  had  been  adopted  as  the  means  of  awak- 
ing all  the  energies  of  the  nation,  succeeded  a  system 
intended  to  lull  those  energies  to  repose.  The  city 
was  wooed  to  pleasure  in  the  balls  of  the  luxurious 
Barras,  and  the  army  employed  in  suppressing  the  tu- 
mults which  the  Faubourgs  had  formerly  been  insti- 
gated to  create. 

This  government  had  one  merit — exposed  to  the  at- 
tacks of  two  different  factions,  it  spilled  little  blood. 
Pichegru  and  his  party,  with  a  humanity  rare  in  those 
times,  were  transported  to  Cayenne,  and  the  conspi- 
racy which  Babceuf  had  denounced  as  so  formidable 
was  suffered  to  disperse  in  quiet  after  the  death  of  its 
leader.  Up  to  a  certain  time  the  Directory  was  fortu- 
nate. At  home  the  royalists  and  the  democrats  were 
alike  subdued.  Abroad,  the  peace  of  Campo  Formio  and 
the  treaty  of  Radstadt  proclaimed  in  Germany  and  Italy 
the  power  of  the  republic.  But  a  government  perpet- 
ually obliged  to  conquer  must  be  constituted  on  a  sys- 
tem of  concentration  and  force,  and  the  constitution  of 
III.  was  purposely  weak,  purposely  divided  ;  such  a 
government  could  not  always  be  victorious,  and  on  its 
first  failure  its  fall  was  certain.  No  sooner,  then,  were 
its  armies  on  the  retreat,  than  its  overthrow  was  fore- 
seen, and  its  successor  sought  for.  Bonaparte  supplied 
the  man  whom  Sieyes  was  in  search  of — his  mind,  en- 
dowed with  all  the  elements  of  order  and  force,  was 
the  very  type  of  that  genius  which  the  country,  turbu- 
lent and  dissatisfied  under  the  irregular  and  enfeebled 
sway  of  the  quintumvirate,  desired. 

Long  torn  by  factions,  accustomed  to  no  particular 
form  of  freedom,  the  people  sighed  for  stability,  and 
did  not  feel  repugnant  to  change.  They  knew  not 
that  agitation  is  the  necessity  of  a  free  state,  and  that 
when  their  general  exclaimed,  "  Je  ne  veux  point  de  fac- 
tions,''^  he  said  in  reality,  "  Je  ne  veux  point  de  liberte.^' 


176  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 


THE  CONSULATE  AND  THE  EMPHIE. 

The  constitution  of  Abbe  Si^yes — Excellent,  but  formed  without 
consideration  for  the  persons  who  were  to  perform  its  parts — Bo- 
naparte at  Corsica — At  Toulon— As  first  consul — Destroyed  liberty, 
maintained  equality ;  sensible  of  literary  influence,  and  calling  him- 
self membre  de  I'institut,  and  founding  "the  legion  of  honour — Took 
as  the  foundation  of  his  power  the  passions  of  mankind,  but  could 
not  understand  their  virtues — His  genius  was  to  materialize  every 
thing — His  empire  a  great  mass,  which  he  rolled  along,  but  which 
without  him  had  no  vitality,  no  power  to  move — The  consulate  em- 
ployed in  preparing  for  the  empire — Bonaparte's  situation  before  the 
war  with  Spain — All  his  faults  concentrated  and  made  visible  in  his 
marriage — Greater  than  the  greatest  legitimate  kings  as  their  ene- 
my, far  smaller  than  the  smallest  as  the  suitor  for  their  alliance — 
The  rising  of  Germany — The  last  war — He  fell  easily,  for  he  stood 
unsupported — The  energies  of  the  nation  he  represented,  pulver- 
ized under  the  weight  of  his  image — Bonaparte  not  to  be  judged 
as  an  ordinary  general — The  conduct  of  the  English  in  persever- 
ing in  a  war  against  Mm  justified — His  statue  now  put  up — There 
is  a  generosity  approaching  to  meanness — The  effects  of  the  em- 
pire—Advantages and  disadvantages — It  contains  three  epochs — 
Bonaparte  mistook  public  opinion,  but  alwaj^s  valued  it. 

There  never  was,  perhaps,  a  government  so  vast  m 
its  conception,  so  simple  and  yet  so  various  in  its  de- 
tails, so  proper  as  it  appeared  for  the  time,  as  that  pro- 
posed after  the  triumph  of  Bonaparte  by  Abbe  Sieyes. 
It  offered  order,  it  preserved  liberty — immense  in  its 
basis,  and  rising  regularly  to  its  apex,  it  was  popular, 
it  was  strong,  and  it  gave  neither  to  the  masses  nor  to 
one  man  a  power  that  could  be  against  the  will  and 
the  interests  of  the  community.  It  was  an  immense 
design,  but  it  had  the  fault  which  on  a  less  stage  has 
frequently  marred  the  effect  of  genius  ;  it  was  formed 
without  sufficient  consideration  of  the  persons  for 
whom  its  parts  were  destined.  The  soldier  who  had 
returned  from  Egypt  to  drive  the  500  from  the  Oran- 
gery at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  was  not  the  indo- 
lent citizen  to  be  satisfied  with  the  idle  guards,  or  the 
insignificant  splendour  of  "  grand  electeur."     Sieyes's 


CONSULATE    AND    THE    EMl'IIiK.  177 

system  was  rejected ;  Sieyes's  name  was  kept  as  a 
kind  of  emblem  to  the  constitution  of  VIII.  This  con- 
stitution, however,  imperfect  as  it  was,  obtained  double 
the  number  of  votes  that  had  appeared  in  favour  of  the 
two  preceding  ones  :  so  powerful  was  the  desire  for 
repose — so  great  was  the  name  of  Bonaparte.  Already 
in  1793  this  enterprising  and  ambitious  soldier  had 
seen  the  throne  of  France  in  his  horizon :  advised  to 
return  to  Corsica,  and  offered  the  prospect  of  Paoli's 
succession,  he  had  said,  "  //  est  plus  aise  de  devenir 
roi  de  France  que  roi  de  Corse'"'  and  from  that  day  his 
star  rose  steadily  and  proudly,  and  as  if  by  an  irresist- 
ible influence,  above  the  destinies  of  his  contempo- 
raries. 

A  second-rate  officer  of  artillery  at  Toulon,  and 
having  Marescot,  the  most  expert  engineer  of  his  time, 
for  rival,  he  maintained  his  opinions  before  the  temble 
tribunal  which  pronounced  death  when  it  pronounced 
censure,  and  spoke  already  with  the  voice  and  superi- 
ority of  a  master.  Commanding  under  Barras  at  the 
battle  of  Vendemiare,  he  gave  his  name  to  the  victory 
that  was  obtained,  and  established  for  a  time  the  totter- 
ing republic  that  he  was  doomed  to  overthrow.  Sent 
as  a  general  to  Italy,  he  assumed  the  part  of  a  sovereign, 
received  ambassadors,  concluded  treaties,  and  formed 
and  overthrew  states.  Impatient  of  repose,  from  Italy 
he  passed  to  the  East,  with  the  desire  and  the  hope 
of  imprinting  his  genius  upon  the  soil  over  which  the 
shadow  of  so  many  mighty  conquerors  has  passed,  and 
faded ;  and  at  last  he  returned  to  take  his  place  in  the 
revolution — which  had  known  many  chiefs,  but  which 
in  him  received  for  the  first  time — a  master. 

With  that  instinct,  the  attribute  of  those  who  are 
born  to  command,  he  saw  at  once  the  despotism  that 
was  possible,  and  the  characteristics  of  the  time  and 
of  the  nation  he  aspired  to  govern.  He  quarrelled 
with  no  faction — for  he  wished  to  found  a  new  system, 
and  was  willing  to  comprehend  all  parties  who  were 
willing  to  compromise  their  opinions.  The  sentiment 
of  equality  is  natural  to  all  men,  and  if  admitted  into 
H3 


178  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

society  takes  a  deep  and  eternal  root.  The  love  of 
liberty  is  a  passion  that  requires  long  growth ;  it  is 
remote  in  its  ramifications,  difficult  in  its  definition, 
and  for  the  most  part  associated  with  particular  laws, 
and  particular  institutions,  that  must  have  entered 
into  our  habits  in  order  to  take  a  firm  hold  upon  our 
hearts. 

The  love  of  liberty,  then,  could  not  exist  in  France, 
'vhere  no  form  of  liberty  had  existed  long.  The  sen- 
timent of  equality,  on  the  contrary,  had  instantaneously 
penetrated  into  the  core  of  the  nation.  Bonaparte 
crushed  at  once  that  which  was  lightly  loved  and  care- 
lessly defended  :  he  maintained  that  which  was  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  to  destroy.  You  see  this 
double  action  in  all  his  works — you  see  it  in  his  codes 
— where  he  attempts  to  make  every  citizen  equal  before 
the  law,  and  to  raise  every  act  of  his  power  above  the 
law.  You  see  it  in  his  administration,  where  his 
justice  as  governor  supplied  that  justice  which  should 
have  been  found  in  the  statutes  of  his  government,  and 
where  he  punished  with  severity  the  vexations  and 
oppressions  which  he  forbade  the  nation  to  punish. 
His  despotism  was  terrible,  but  his  despotism  was  just 
and  glorious,  and  buoyed  up  gracefully  and  majestically 
by  many  of  the  dispositions  of  the  French. 

When  I  said  that  Louis  XVI.  might  perhaps  have 
continued  to  reign  if  he  could  have  flattered  the  lite- 
rary ambition  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by  destroying 
the  privileges  of  the  court,  which  only  accorded  h?)n- 
ours  to  arms,  and  restricted  the  use  of  arms  to  the 
nobility — when  I  said  that  the  old  monarchy  was  per- 
haps possible,  if  the  aristocracy  could  have  been  re- 
generated by  the  new  ideas  which  Voltaire  had  pro- 
mulgated from  his  throne  at  Ferney,  and  which  gave 
to  literature  and  the  arts  the  position  in  the  state  which 
they  were  accorded  in  society — when  I  .said  this,  I 
said  that  which  Bonaparte  saw  when  he  assumed  as 
his  proudest  title,  previous  to  the  consulate,  "  Membra 
de  Vinstitut,^''  and  when,  as  first  consul,  he  founded  tlie 
legion  of  honour,  and  gave  to  Massenathe  first  general 


CONSULATE  AND  THE  KMPIRK.         17  > 

and  David  the  first  painter  of  the  kingdom,  the  same 
mark,  and  the  same  title  of  distinction. 

It  was  thus  that  he  united  the  vanity  natural  to  the 
French  with  the  passion  for  equality,  which  had  be- 
come to  them  a  second  nature,  and  threw  upon  the 
moving  sands  of  the  revolution  which  every  wind  had 
■  previously  dispersed,  those  masses  of  granite  on  which 
many  still  believe  that  his  edifice  might  have  stood 
with  security  if  it  had  not  aspired  to  the  skies.  Car- 
ried beyond  the  pitch  of  his  intentions  by  the  ardour 
of  his  character,  the  policy  of  Napoleon  was,  notwith- 
standing, everywhere  profound.  He  took  as  the 
foundation  of  his  power  the  passions  of  mankind :  re- 
ligion is  one — he  re-established  religion ;  war  is 
another — he  indulged  in  war  to  an  excess  that  would 
sooner  have  wearied  any  other  nature  than  that  of  the 
Gauls. 

The  aim  of  the  present  to  appear  gigantic  to  the 
future  was  ever  present  to  his  eyes,  and  in  roads,  ca- 
nals, bridges,  he  has  traced  on  every  side  of  him  those 
vast  characters  on  which  prosperity  is  transmitted  to 
distant  generations.  But,  great  in  his  designs,  great  in 
himself,  he  saw  little  beyond  the  weaknesses,  the  ma- 
terial wants  of  his  fellow-men  :  he  beheld  in  the  revo- 
lution the  ambition  which  distracted  and  lost  it — but 
he  neither  beheld  nor  believed  (in  spite  of  the  cour- 
age of  Carnot)  the  disinterestedness  and  the  devotion 
which  had  ennobled  and  produced  it.  This  was  his 
error. 

The  superiority  of  virtue  over  vice  in  government 
IS,  that  in  vice  there  is  no  fecundity,  no  productive 
principle  of  duration.  If  you  wish  your  machine  to 
last,  you  will  harden  and  elevate  the  elements  it  is 
composed  of.  You  must  govern  men  according  to  the 
passions  of  mankind — but  if  you  wish  your  govern- 
ment to  endure,  you  will  infuse  into  those  passions 
something  of  that  sublime  and  immaterial  nature  which 
furnishes  us  with  the  conception  of  eternity. 

Now  the  genius  of  Bonaparte,  especially  mathe- 
matic,  was  to  materialize  every  thing.     He  saw  and 


180  IIISTOKiCAL    ClIANGES. 

seized  at  once  those  feelings  which  he  found,  and  out 
of  which  his  government  was  to  be  shaped ;  he  com- 
bined, consolidated  those  feelings  into  a  form,  compact, 
solid,  strong  ;  but  in  their  composition  he  destroyed 
their  vitality.  His  empire  became  an  immense  mass, 
wieldy  in  his  gigantic  hands,  and  which  he  rolled  im- 
petuously along  :  under  his  guidance,  and  together,  it 
was  terrible,  and  for  a  long  time  irresistible  ; — deprived ' 
of  him  (broken  by  the  shock  of  a  still  mightier,  be- 
cause a  more  moral,  force),  it  was  nothing  ;  for  it  bad 
no  life,  no  individuality,  no  soul. 

The  consulate  was  employed  in  collecting"  the  ma- 
terials for  the  empire ;  and  in  his  generals,  his  solici- 
tors, and  his  senate,  Napoleon  found  the  marshals,  the 
chamberlains,  and  the  ministers  that  were  to  support 
and  decorate  the  imperial  throne.  The  office  which 
he  held  ostensibly  from  the  nation,  but  which  in  reality 
he  owed  to  his  sword,  was  to  be  sanctioned  before  his 
soldiers  by  a  victory,  and  the  campaign  which  termi- 
natedat  Marengo  placed  the  modern  Hannibal  above  the 
most  renowned  generals  of  antiquity.  The  assump- 
tion of  the  imperial  purple  demanded  a  similar  exploit, 
and  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  raised  the  destinies  of  the 
empire  above  the  glories  of  the  republic. 

Here  is  the  point  where  Napoleon  might  at  once 
have  consulted  his  security  and  his  ambition  :  absolute 
over  France  and  over  Italy,  as  emperor  and  king — 
over  Spain,  by  the  servility  of  its  minister — over 
Switzerland,  by  the  act  of  moderation — over  Holland 
and  Naples,  by  his  two  brothers — and  having  at  his  or- 
ders the  kings  of  Bavaria  and  Wirtemberg,  and  the 
Confederation  of  the  Rhine — what  enemy  had  he  to 
fear — save  his  own  mind  ?  His  tyranny  had  hitherto 
been  applauded,  and  he  reigned  over  the  greatest  part 
of  Europe  without  shocking  the  feelings  of  its  inhab- 
itants. 

Thus  may  reason  the  philosopher  and  the  historian : 
thus  rarely  reason  those  upon  whose  deeds  the  philos- 
opher and  the  historian  meditate,  and  who  have  usu 
allv  shown  more  temerity  and  more  madness  in  the 


CONSULATE    AND    THE    EMPIRE.  J  81 

first  obscure  steps  of  their  career,  than  in  those  which 
carry  them  finally  beyond  the  possibilities  of  human 
ambition. 

Bonaparte  had  risen  hitherto  by  the  victories  he  had 
achieved,  the  admiration  he  had  excited,  the  conspira- 
cies he  had  subdued.  Attacked  at  home  and  abroad, 
he  had  been  successful  in  his  defence.  In  France  his 
despotism  was  wise,  his  glory  was  great,  and  on  the 
Continent  he  had  combated  the  sovereigns  and  their 
armies,  but  he  had  rather  appeared  as  a  protector  than 
an  enemy  to  the  people.  His  impolitic  spoliation  of 
Prussia,  his  unjustifiable  seizure  of  Spain,  brought  new 
elements  into  the  conflict  against  him. 

From  that  moment  the  emperor  of  the  French,  who 
had  hitherto  been  considered  as  a  being  apart,  became 
one  of  the  ordinary  kings  of  the  earth,  and  awakened 
the  feelings  which  an  emperor  of  Austria  or  of  Russia 
would  awaken  now  if  he  declared  war  against  the  lib- 
erties of  Europe.  Confounded  with  the  mass  of  mon- 
archs,  he  sought  their  alliance,  and  the  hand  which 
had  been  at  the  service  of  Barras  was  offered  to  the 
daughter  of  the  Caesars. 

All  Bonaparte's  faults  may  be  concentrated  into  this 
act,  by  which  he  was  at  once  separated  from  the  sys- 
tem he  had  formed,  and  the  career  he  had  traversed, 
and  transformed  from  the  daring  adventurer,  taking  the 
lead  in  a  new  order  of  things,  into  one  of  those  "  Vieilles 
Perruques,"  which,  up  to  that  hour,  had  been  the  vic- 
tims of  his  arms  and  the  objects  of  his  ridicule.  No 
fault  is  so  absurd  in  a  public  man  as  that  of  confusing 
the  nature  of  his  position. 

As  long  as  he  is  the  decided  enemy  of  one  party, 
the  decided  friend  of  another,  he  never  has  any  occa- 
sion to  halt  or  to  hesitate.  He  knows  those  from 
whom  he  may  expect  enmity,  and  those  to  whom  he 
may  naturally  look  for  assistance.  But  the  instant  he 
complicates  his  relations,  every  action  and  consider- 
ation become  uncertain.  He  has  something  to  hope, 
something  to  fear  in  either  course  he  may  adopt ;  and 
doubts  as  to  the  manner  in  which  he  may  be  most  cer- 
16 


182  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

tain  to  succeed  prevent  that  concentration  of  purpose 
which  is  so  essential  to  success.  Bonaparte  was  the 
child  of  new  thoughts  and  new  feelings,  to  which  his 
genius  had  given  a  gigantic  force,  and  of  which  he 
stood  for  the  time  as  the  representative,  before  alarmed 
and  astonished  Europe.  He  had  turned  a  republic,  it 
is  true,  into  a  military  empire,  and  around  his  throne 
stood  a  new  aristocracy.  But  still  he  had  hitherto 
ruled  as  an  elder  brother  over  a  nation  of  soldiers,  and 
the  titles  he  had  given  were  so  many  orders  of  merit 
distributed  to  the  most  deserving  of  the  people. 

He  was  not  the  master  but  the  organ  of  public 
opinion,  and  through  him,  as  through  a  trumpet,  spake 
the  warlike  genius  of  the  French. 

To  those  who  possessed  the  anciont  thrones,  the 
wasted  prerogatives  and  worn-out  genealogies  of  an- 
tique Europe,  he  was  naturally  opposed.  They  could 
not  make  peace  with  him  without  making  peace  with 
a  principle  at  war  with  their  own  existence.  As  long 
as  he  saw  this,  his  course  was  plain ;  his  enemies 
were  before  him,  and  it  was  only  in  the  sympathies 
that  he  could  enlist  against  them  that  he  could  hope 
to  find  allies. 

As  the  foe  of  the  legitimate  monarchs,  he  was  ten 
thousand  times  greater  than  they  ;  but  there  was  not  a 
petty  prince  in  Germany  whom  he  did  not  sink  be- 
neath when  he  became  a  suitor  for  their  alliance. 
The  prestige  which  made  him  superior  to  other  men 
was  gone  ;  even  those  around  him  felt  their  conse- 
quence diminished,  and  all  the  new  names  and  glories 
of  France  sunk  into  comparative  insignificance,  when 
it  appeared  that  Napoleon  himself  found  it  necessary 
to  mingle  the  renown  of  his  deeds  with  the  "  histori- 
cal blood"  of  the  enemy  he  had  subdued,  and  seemed 
to  doubt  the  reality  of  his  dignity,  and  to  deem  that 
his  diadem  could  not  be  truly  royal  until  it  was  placed 
on  the  legitimate  brows  of  a  daughter  of  some  ancient 
dynasty. 

The  refusal  of  his  alliance  in  Russia  was  an  almost 
certain  presage  of  his  subsequent  defeat  there ;  and 


CONSULATE    AND    THE    EMPIFiE.  183 

the  miserable  policy  with  which  he  afterward  pre- 
ferred consulting  the  interest  of  his  Austrian  father-in- 
law  to  conferring  liberty  on  Poland,  betrayed  all  the 
errors  he  fell  into  from  the  falsity  of  his  position.  The 
only  success  which  attended  his  new  alliance  was  the 
birth  of  a  son,  heir  to  an  empire  already  on  the  de- 
cline. The  reaction  which  commenced  with  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  with  Spain,  and  which  rapidly  extended 
itself  by  the  continental  system  throughout  Europe, 
was  signalized  by  the  defection  of  the  Emperor  of 
Austria,  notwithstanding  the  courtesies  of  his  son-in- 
law,  and  the  rising  of  the  whole  of  the  north  of  Ger- 
many, after  that  memorable  campaign  in  which  Napo- 
leon left  among  the  snows  and  the  ruins  of  Moscow 
the  character  of  his  troops  and  the  charm  of  his 
renown. 

He  was  vanquished  at  the  moment  when  it  was 
most  necessary  for  him  to  conquer  ;  for  the  nation, 
long  enslaved  by  his  glory,  was  fatigued  by  his  do- 
minion. Crushed  beneath  the  conscription,  the  impo- 
sitions, and  the  cours  prevotales  of  Napoleon,  the  citi- 
zen languished  for  security,  quiet,  and  commerce, 
while  the  priest  conspired  in  his  prison  against  the 
enemy  of  the  pope,  and  the  ex-minister  of  the  empire 
plotted  to  be  minister  of  the  "  restoration." 

Then  it  was  that,  driven  behind  the  Rhine,  aban- 
doned by  the  people  he  defended,  alone  against  the 
world,  Bonaparte  relied  upon  his  veteran  soldiers  and 
his  own  genius,  and  prepared,  with  a  skill  and  a  courage 
suited  to  his  better  days,  to  protect  France  from  the 
armies  who,  profiting  by  the  returning  tide  of  war, 
were  pouring  on  to  her  invasion.  Svvartzenburg  was 
advancing  by  Switzerland,  Blucher  by  Frankfort, 
Bernadotte  by  Holland,  and  the  English  under  the  com- 
mand of  Wellington — the  English,  who  had  never 
bowed  the  neck,  nor  relaxed  in  the  pursuit — the  Eng- 
lish, proud  of  their  indomitable  perseverance,  looked 
down  on  their  ancient  enemy  from  the  heights  of  the 
Pyrenees. 

It  was  not  lonjf  before  these  hostile  bands  dictated 


184  HISTORICAL    CHANGKS. 

their  terms  of  peace  to  the  inhabitants  of  Paris.  At 
Pra^e,  Napoleon  might  have  bounded  his  empire  by 
the  Rhine  ;  at  Chatillon,  he  might  have  sat  upon  the 
throne  of  ancient  France.  All  that  now  remained 
to  him  was  the  sovereignty  of  Elba,  to  which  he  re- 
treated. Thus  fell  the  only  man  who  in  modern  times 
has  aspired  to  universal  dominion !  After  having 
planted  his  standard  in  every  capital  of  Europe  except 
London ;  after  having  visited  as  a  conqueror  Rome, 
Naples,  Madrid,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Moscow — after  having 
gained  a  kingdom  at  every  battle,  and  distributed  crowns 
and  sceptres  with  the  majesty  and  the  omnipotence  of 
a  providence,  one  reverse  defeated  him ;  and  he  fell 
easily,  for  he  stood  unsupported.  The  energies  of  the 
nation  he  represented  were  pulverized  under  the  weight 
of  his  image.  Even  the  military  spirit  which  had 
hitherto  sustained  forsook  him — when  in  one  year  he 
demanded  one  million  one  hundred  thousand  soldiers 
from  a  population  that  had  already  sustained  three 
thousand  battles. 

The  later  years  of  his  reign,  splendid  for  his  mili- 
tary achievements,  but  pale  in  the  aspect  of  his  for- 
tunes, were  stained  by  a  weakness  from  which  one 
vainly  hopes  that  heroes  may  be  free.  It  was  then 
that  the  king  of  kings  boasted  he  was  a  gentleman 
— it  was  then  that  the  severe,  but  frank  and  friendly 
soldier  degenerated  into  the  bourgeois  emperor,  and 
surrounded  himself  with  all  the  antiquated  niaisiries 
of  a  Bourbon  court.  One  sickens  at  the  disgusting 
vulgarity  with  which  he  sought  to  fill  his  palace  with 
a  proud  nobility  that  despised  him  ;  at  his  respect  for 
the  "  dames  du  chdteau,''^  and  those  who  under  the  old 
regime  engrossed  the  privilege  of  riding  in  the  royal 
coaches.  Ambitious  to  be  revered  more  as  the  mon- 
arch than  the  warrior,  he  was  now  rather  surrounded 
by  courtiers  than  by  pupils.  He  inspired  less  the 
passion  of  glory  than  the  desire  to  rise  ;  and  his  mar- 
shals, different  from  the  poor  and  enthusiastic  generals 
of  the  republic,  thought  less  of  the  country  than  of  the 
estates  for  which  they  fought, — less  of  the  victory  they 


CONSULA.TE  AND  THE  EMPIRE.        185 

liad  to  gain  than  of  the  principality  that  would  re- 
ward it. 

As  a  warrior,  Bonaparte  is  not  to  be  judged  by  or- 
dinary rules,  by  his  simple  success  or  failure  on  the 
field  of  battle.  Some  great  political  conception  was 
usually  connected  with  his  military  plans,  and  he  fought, 
not  to  gain  a  post  or  a  place,  but  to  change  the  desti- 
nies of  the  world.  It  was  frequently  necessary,  then, 
not  merely  to  obtain  a  victory,  but  to  obtain  it  in  a  par- 
ticular manner — to  frighten  Europe  by  the  audacity  of 
his  designs,  as  much  as  by  the  success  of  their  execu- 
tion, and  so  we  see,  during  the  whole  of  his  career, 
he  hardly  ever  gained  a  battle  without  dictating  a 
peace.  Indeed,  it  was  the  immense  consequences 
attendant  upon  his  victories  that  should  have  taught 
him  that  they  could  not  often  be  repeated.  No  one 
yet  ever  played  for  a  number  of  years  with  the  chances 
against  him,  in  order  to  win  much,  without  finally 
losing  all. 

But  the  despotism  which  had  been  organized  to  make 
war  rendered  war  necessary  to  continue  it.  "  France 
was  obliged  to  conquer  Europe,  or  Europe  to  conquer 
France  :"* — the  phrase  is  the  phrase  of  a  French 
general  attached  to  the  person  of  Bonaparte,  and  the 
Englishman  who  reads  it,  and  who  has  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  inquiring  into,  the  vast  plans,  and  of  tracing 
the  vast  ambition,  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  will  acknow- 
ledge— ay,  even  despite  the  taxes  and  the  calamities 
which  a  long  war  necessarily  entails — will  still  acknow- 
ledge, if  he  have  the  courage  to  rise  above  the  prejudices 
of  party  faction — that  as  Europe  owes  a  great  debt  to 
England  for  Jier  perseverance,  so  England  owes  a  great 
debt  to  those  ministers  and  those  warriors  by  whose 
unwearied  energy  and  untiring  resolution  the  only 
peace  was  obtained  which  could  really  guaranty  the 
liberty  of  mankind.! 

*  General  Foy's  Peninsular  War. 

■f  I  do  not  approve  of  our  conduct  to  Bonaparte  when  he  was  at 
our  mercy,  nor  of  our  conduct  to  France  iij  1815,  when  we  should 
not  have  confounded  the  nation  with  the  army,  nor  humiliated  a 
16* 


186  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

One  of  the  circumstances  most  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  the  violent  royalism,  the  constitutional  doctrines, 
and  the  passionate  republicanism  of  the  present  day,  is 
the  still  remaining  affection  among  all  parties  for  their 
ancient  emperor. 

Forgetful  of  the  sentiment  with  which  they  shook 
off  his  tyranny,  the  partisans  of  almost  every  opinion 
now  unite  in  chanting  the  same  fatiguing  hymn  of 
applause  ;  and  as  one  among  the  many  marvels  of  our 
epoch,  we  saw  the  monarchy  which  rose  upon  the 
shoulders  of  a  free  press  banish  Lafayette  from. its 
councils,  and  re-establish  the  statue  of  Bonaparte. 

There  is  a  generosity  which  approaches  to  meanness. 
What  can  a  government,  preaching  peace,  professing 
liberty,  have  to  do  with  the  conqueror  who  broke  under 
the  wheels  of  his  war-chariot  every  law  but  that  of  his 
own  will  ?  Can  it  admire  him  ?  No  :  why  should  it 
profess  admiration  ?  Ay !  cry  the  French,  the  foot  of 
a  despot  was  on  our  necks ;  but  his  despotism  was 
glorious  ! — "  Glorious !" 

Vous  avez  vu  tomher  la  gloire 

D'un  h6ros  trop  indompte 

Qui  prit  I'autel  de  la  victoire, 

Pour  I'autel  de  la  liberie, 

Vingt  nations  ont  pousse 

Jusqu'en  vos  murs — le  char  imp6rieux  ' 

Where,  Frenchmen,  was  the  glory  of  having  the 
Cossacks  encamped  in  your  walls,  and  a  sovereign 
dictated  to  you  by  the  stranger?  Never  was  France, 
since  Crecy  and  Agincourt,  in  so  pitiable  a  condition 
as  at  the  end  of  that  reign  with  which  you  connect 
her  glory.  Her  commerce  was  destroyed,4ier  industry 
repressed,  her  population  absorbed  by  a  system  too 
weak  to  keep  the  enemy  from  her  capital.    From  1802 


brave  people,  with  whom  we  wished  to  rest  in  peace ;  but,  opposed  as 
I  am,  and  have  ever  been,  to  many  of  the  principles  of  that  party  who 
then  possessed  power  in  England,  I  think  it  but  an  act  of  justice  to 
observe,  that  the  long  war  it  engaged  us  in  appears  to  me  a  fatal  ne- 
cessity—dangerous to  obey,  but,  with  such  a  man  as  Bonaparte  on  the 
throne  of  France,  impossible  to  avoid. 


CONSULATE  AND  THE  EMPIRE.         187 

to  1817  (fifteen  years),  the  number  of  patents  were  only- 
increased  by  56,000;*  from  1817  to  1829  (but  twelve 
years),  they  underwent  an  increase  of  253,000.1  In 
1814  the  births  in  Paris  were  21,257  ;  deaths,  27,815. 

These  are  facts  that  signalize  the  glories  of  the 
empire  ;  and  such  is  the  diiference  between  peace  and 
war,  between  even  an  enlightened  despotism  and  an 
imperfect  constitution.  The  continent  which  he  con- 
quered owes  more  to  Napoleon  than  the  nation  subser- 
vient to  his  conquests.  Abroad  he  carried  the  civili- 
zation and  the  code  of  France.  In  the  old  kingdoms 
which  have  been  re-established,  he  destroyed  many  of 
the  old  ideas,  which  it  has  become  impossible  to 
restore.  Wherever  he  carried  defeat  he  carried  im- 
provement, and  the  communications  which  were  to 
facilitate  victory  have  been  utilized  to  industry  and 
commerce. 

At  home  he  repressed  many  of  the  energies  which 
elsewhere  he  excited.  But  in  criticising  his  reign,  it 
would  be  unjust  to  deny  its  advantages.  The  same 
passion  which  carried  Bonaparte  to  Egypt  and  to 
Moscow  expended  itself  in  the  interior  of  his  kingdom 
on  those  bridges,  canals,  triumphal  arches,  and  memo- 
rable edifices  with  which  France,  during  his  power, 
v/as  decorated  and  improved.  The  same  system, 
which  for  a  time  so  fatally  confined  industry  within 
certain  channels,  gave  a  stimulus  to  native  manufac- 
tures. The  same  unlimited  thirst  for  glory  which 
finally  brought  the  stranger  within  his  dominions 
mounted  up  the  mind  of  the  French  to  a  pitch  which 
will  long  render  them  capable  of  great  achievements  : 
and,  lastly,  that  spirit  of  concentration  and  force  which 
destroyed  many  of  the  principles  and  benefits  of  the 
revolution  consolidated  and  secured  the  rest.  He  was 
as  much  the  creature  of  circumstances  as  of  his  own 
genius ;  both  contributed  to  his  success,  both  con- 
tributed to  his  fall. 

The  reign  of  Bonaparte,  instead  of  an  argument  for 

*  Patents  in  1802,  791,500;  1817,  847.100. 
t  Patents  in  1817,  847,100;  1829,  1,101,193. 


188  HISTORICAL    CHANGES. 

despising  public  opinion,  is  a  strong  proof  of  its  power 
— a  power  which  he  never  offended  with  impunity,  and 
to  which,  even  in  his  most  unpopular  acts,  he  always 
paid  a  certain  attention.  It  contains  three  epochs  : — 
The  first  when  the  nation  and  the  army  were  one,  and 
military  success  abroad  and  security  at  home  were  the 
public  opinion.  To  this  period  Bonaparte  properly 
belonged.  This  was  the  era  suited  to  his  genius,  and 
he  was  then  what  he  idly  believed  himself  afterward, 
the  real  and  sole  representative  of  the  people. 

The  next  period  is  that  when,  hurried  on  by  his 
genius,  he  passed  by  that  public  opinion  which  lay  in 
the  course  which  he  pursued :  the  admiration  for  mili- 
tary glory  which  had  carried  him  to  the  highest  place 
in  the  republic,  he  made  the  foundation  of  an  arbitrary 
empire — the  desire  for  security,  which  had  strengthened 
his  hands  as  a  free  magistrate,  he  made  the  basis  of  a 
servile  submission.  The  policy  of  reigning  by  an 
army  separates  the  army  from  the  nation,  and  gives  to 
each  its  particular  views  and  its  particular  interests. 
In  France,  where  the  whole  population  was  deeply 
imbued  with  a  love  of  arms,  this  division  M'^ould 
naturally  take  place  with  a  certain  insensibility  and 
slowness  that  nearly  rendered  its  progress  unperceived. 
The  victory  of  Austerlitz  was  celebrated  with  almost 
as  much  national  enthusiasm  as  if  it  had  been  gained  by 
the  first  consul :  but  the  battles  which  followed,  in 
which  success  was  equally  as  complete  and  equally 
as  glorious,  seem  to  have  created  among  the  people  at 
large  only  a  moderate  sensation ;  and  the  triumphs 
of  Eckmuhl  and  Ratisbon,  in  the  trophies  of  which 
might  be  counted  twenty  thousand  prisoners,  added 
less  to  the  glory  of  the  conqueror  than  to  the  satiety 
(beginning  to  exist)  of  conquest. — The  third  and  last 
portion  of  Napoleon's  reign  commences  where  his 
despotic  spirit  had  created  a  reaction  in  public  opinion, 
which  had  formerly  favoured  tyranny  by  its  passion  for 
repose,  while  his  warlike  genius,  equally  extreme,  had 
wearied  even  the  martial  ardour  of  his  soldiers.  It 
was  then  that  liberty  acquired  new  force  by  every  im- 


CONSULATE  AND  THE  EMPIRE.         189 

perial  decree  destined  to  subdue  it,  and  that  that  great 
army  was  defeated  which  had  marched  almost  dis- 
piritedly to  conquest.* 

*  To  any  one  who  reads  the  conspiracy  of  Mallet,  Bonaparte  will 
not  appear  to  have  been  lost  at  Moscow.  When  a  soldier  of  fortune 
(escaped  from  prison  with  eighteen  francs  for  liis  treasure,  and  only 
those  whom  a  disposition  to  be  credulous  might  render  dupes,  for  his 
accompHces)  could  endanger  a  throne  which  had  no  hereditary 
prestige  for  support,  the  popularity  on  which  it  stood  was  a  treach- 
erous quicksand.  But  while  the  essential  qualities  of  Bonaparte's 
genius,  seeming  to  acquire  additional  force  by  the  continuance  of  their 
action,  irresistibly  prescribed  his  course,  the  clearness  of  his  judgment 
always  showed  what  ought  to  be  his  object.  He  always  felt  and  saw 
that  his  power  was  that  of  popular  favour  and  public  opinion ;  but 
those  strong  energies  in  his  character,  which  had  made  him  a  type  of 
the  inchnations  of  a  particular  period,  were  too  indomitable  to  be 
turned  or  constrained  towards  the  wants  and  wishes  of  another. 
He  was  far  from  despising  popularity,  but  decision  and  force  being  the 
characteristics  of  his  genius,  he  always  flattered  himself  that  it  was  by 
decision  and  force  that  popularity  was  to  be  obtained. 


APPENDIX 


[Documents  referred  to — Chabrol's  Statistique  de  Paris 
— Dr.  Bowring's  Report — Census  of  Paris.] 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  that  garu- 
bling-houses,  privileged  by  the  police,  first  established 
themselves  at  Paris.     Then  there  were  : — 

Dufour,  rue  neuve  des  Mathurins. 

Amyot  et  Fontaine,  rue  Richelieu. 

Deschamps,  faubourg  St.  Germain. 

Nollet,  rue  Richelieu. 

Andrieu,  au  Pont-aux-Choux. 

Chavigny,  rue  Montmartre. 

Delzene,  rue  Platriere. 

Pierry,  rue  Clery. 

Barbaroux,  rue  des  Petits-Peres. 

Herbert,  au  cafe  de  la  Regence. 

David  et  Dufresnoy. 

Odelin,  rue  Neuve  des  Petits-Champs. 

Latour,  rue  Feydeau. 

Bouillerot,  a  I'Arche  Marion. 

Boyer  et  Remy,  rue  Richelieu. 

At  present  Paris  contains  eight  such  gambling- 
houses.     Four  at  the 

Palais  Royal,  Nos.  154,  129,  113,  et  36. 

One  rue  Marivaux,  No.  13. 

One  rue  du  Bac,  No.  31. 

One  at  Frascati's,  rue  Richelieu. 

One  at  the  grand  salon,  rue  Richelieu. 

The  privilege  is  at  present  granted  at  the  price  of 
6,500,000  francs,  which  are  paid  into  the  treasury 
through  the  medium  of  the  city  of  Paris,  which  receives 
6,500,000,  and  pays  6,000,000.    The  company,  besides 


192 


APPENDIX. 


this,  are  obliged  to  surrender  to  the  municipality  three- 
quarters  of  its  clear  benefits,  and  the  police  assist  every 
day  at  the  closing  of  the  accounts. 


Income  of  one  thousand  francs   according  to   Mr. 
Millot. 

Francs, 

For  Taxes,  direct,  indirect,  local,  &c,       .         .  136"05 
Food,  of  which  the  proportions  per  cent,  are 

26  drink        .        "] 

34  animal  food     I 

19  bread       .         | 

11  colonials           )-       .         .  352*43 
7  vegetables 
2  condiments 
1  water 

Education  of  children       .        .    '   .        .        .  35-75 

Rent  and  repair  of  buildings          .        .         .  114- 

Clothing 70-48 

Light  and  fuel        .        .        .        .        .        .  68-18 

Washing 36" 

Furnishing  houses 68-02 

Expenses  for  servants 46* 

Horses  and  carriages    .         .        .        .        .  32-88 

Coach  hire 11*54 

Tobacco .  6-51 

Baths 3-20 

Charity 1142 

Medical  attendance 11*56 

Newspaper 3.43 

Theatres 7*09 

Other  expenses     ......  6 '44 

Francs    .        .  1020  98 


Dr.  Bowring  has,  I  find,  in  his  late  report,  given  this 
calculation.  Nothing  can  be  more  false  as  a  picture  of 
the  expense  of  any  individual ;  but  as  far  as  the  habits 
of  the  mass  are  concerned,  it  gives,  if  correct,  a  general 
idea. 

Consumption  of  the  City  of  Paris  for  the  year  1832. 
Wine       .        .        .        .        .        595,585  hectolitres. 
Brandy 27,794         „ 


APP£ND1X. 


193 


Cider  and  Perry 

Vinegar 

Beer 

Oxen 

Cows 

Calves 

Sheep     . 

Swine 

Meat  of  all  kinds 

Pork 

Dry  Cheeses 

Oysters 

Fresh-water  Fish 

Butter 

Eggs 

Poultry  and  Game 

Hay 

Straw 

Oats 


12,352  hectolitres. 
17,902 
78,948 
67§,159  head. 
15,290      ,, 
60,237      „ 
306,327      „ 
67,241      „ 
3,1 17,759  kilogrammes 
492,820  „ 

986,532  „ 

731,590  francs. 
399,967  „ 
9,196,274  „ 
4,053,959  „ 
6,660,590  „ 
7,655,592  bundles. 
11,511,976      „ 

893,873  hectolitres 


It  is  not  worth  while  to  put  in  the  "  carte"  of  a  res- 
taurant referred  to,  but  I  have  had  the  curiosity  to 
count  the  number  of  articles  it  contained,  and  which  I 
gave  as  200  ;  I  find  302. 


RAPPORTS  FROM  M.  CHABROL. 


It  was  my  original  intention  to  have  quoted  very 
largely  from  the  reports  published  annually,  during  the 
time  M.  Chabrol  was  prefet  de  la  Seine,  the  materials 
for  which  still  continue  to  be  collected — reports  which 
contain  the  most  curious,  and  interesting,  and  valuable 
information.  It  was  my  original  intention  to  have  closed 
this  volume  with  a  great  variety  of  tables  taken  from 
these  reports.*  I  have  been  induced,  however,  to  re- 
frain from  this ;  first,  because  I  have  some  consideration 
for  the  feehngs  of  those  readers  who  would  have  shrunk 

*  These  reports  have  been  framed  by  the  "  Chef  du  bureau  de 
Statistique  de  la  ville  de  Paris,"  under  the  direction  of  M.  Fourier, 
"  Secretaire  de  1' Academic  des  Sciences,"  and  the  author  of  the  very 
remarkable  memoirs  at  the  head  of  each  volume. 

Vol.  L— I  17 


194  APPENDIX. 

in  dismay  from  a  book  which  put  on  so  formidable  and 
business-like  an  appearance ;  and  secondly,  because  I 
find  these  reports,  though  not  originally  sold,  may  yet 
be  purchased,  and, it  is  therefore  possible  to  refer  to 
them.  Refer  to  them  I  do,  therefore,  and  in  order  that 
the  reader  may  not  be  disappointed,  I  subjoin  an  enu- 
meration of  the  contents  of  one  volume,  published  as 
"  Recherches  Statistiques  sur  la  Ville  de  Paris  et  le 
Departement  de  la  Seine,  1826." 


Enumeration  Generale  des  Ohjets  Contenus  dans  ce 
Recueil. 

TABLEAUX    STATISTIQUES. 

Tableau  meteorologique  (1822). 

idem  (1823). 

Resume  des  principales  observations  qui  ont  ete  faites 

a  Paris  depuis  le  milieu  du  XVII.*  siecle. 
Tableau  de  la  hauteur  des  eaux  (1822). 

idem  (1823). 

Chemins  de  halage  des  bateaux  le  long  de  la  Seine  et  de 

la  Marne,  dans  le  departement. 
Canal  de  la  Seine  a  la  Seine. — 1.'*  branche.  Canal  S. 

Denis. — 2.*  idem.  Canal  S.  Martin. 
Note  de  rectification  a  faire  dans  le  rapport  des  hauteurs 

de  diff"erens  points  du  departement  de  la  Seine  au 

niveau  de  I'Ocean  {Recueil  public  en  1823,  tableau  21). 
Tableau  geologique  du  sol  du  departement  de  la  Seine. 
Apergu  geognostique  du  territoire  du  departement  de  la 

Seine. 
idem  du  territoire  de  chaque  commune  (arron- 

dissement  de  Saint  Denis). 

idem  (arrondissement  de  Sceaux). 


Substances  minerales  combustibles. 

metalliques. 

pierreuses  et  terreuses. 

Chaux  carbonatee. 

Idem  sulfatee. 

^Quartz. 

Cailloux  roules,  gravier,  sable  et  sablon. 

Argile  et  marne. 

Diverses. 
Releve  general  des  actes  de  I'^tat  civil  dans  le  d^parte- 


APPENDIX.  195 

rnent  de  la  Seine,  pour  chaque  mois  et  par  arrondisse- 

ment  (1822). 
Releve  des  actes  de  naissance  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1822). 
Details  concernant  les  enfans  naturels  (1822). 

concernant  les  enfans  morts-nes  (1822). 

Releve  des  actes  de  mariage  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1822). 
des  actes  de  deces  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1822). 
Tableau  des  deces,  avec  distinction  d'age,  de  sexe,  et 

d'etat  de  mariage  {ville  de  Paris,  1822). 
Details  concernant  les  morts  accidentelles  {yille  de  Paris, 

1822). 

concernant  les  suicides  (1822). 

concernant  les  deces  pour  cause  de  |)etite  verole, 

et  les  vaccinations  gratuites  {ville  de  Paris,  1822). 
Releve  general  des  actes  de  I'etat  civil  dans  le  departe- 
ment de  la  Seine,  pour  chaque  mois  et  par  arrondisse- 
ment (1823). 
Releve  des  actes  de  naissance  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1823). 
Details  concernant  les  enfans  naturels  (1823) 

concernant  les  enfans  morts-nes  (1823). 

Releve  des  actes  de  mariage  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1823). 
des  actes  de  deces  dans  le  departement,  pour 

chaque  mois  et  par  arrondissement  (1823). 
Tableau  des  deces,  avec  distinction  d'age,  de  sexe,  et 

d'etat  de  mariage  {ville  de  Paris,  1823). 
Details  concernant  les  morts  accidentelles  {ville  de  Paris, 

1823). 

concernant  les  suicides  (1823). 

concernant  les  deces  pour  cause  de  petite  verole, 

et  les  vaccinations  gratuites  {ville  de  Paris,  1823). 
Mouvement  moyen  de  la  population  dans  chacun  des  12 

arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris  (1817,  1818,  1819, 

1820,  et  1821). 
Nombre  moyen  annuel  des  naissances  dans  chacun  des 

12  arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte  k  la 

population  des  deux  sexes  (1817,  1818,  1819, 1820,  et 

1821). 
-^ idem  des   naissances   d'enfans  legitimes    dans 

chacun  des  12  arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rap- 
12 


1 96  APPENDIX. 

porte  a  lu  population  des  deux  sexes  et  au  nombre  des 
manages  (1817,  1818,  1819,  1820,  et  1821). 

Nombre  des  naissaiices  d'enfans  naturels  dans  chacun 
des  12  arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte 
a  la  population  des  deux  sexes  et  au  nombre  des 
enfans  naturels  reconnus  (1817,  1818,  1819,  1820,  et 
1821). 

Nombre  moyen  des  enfans  morts-nes  dans  chacun  des 
12  arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte  a  celui 
des  naissances  pour  les  deux  sexes  (1817,  1818,  1819, 
1820,  et  1821). 

idem  annuel  des  mariages  dans  chacun  des  12 

arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte  a  la 
population  (1817,  1818,  1819,  1820,  et  1821). 

idem  des  deces  a  domicile  dans  chacun  des  12 


arrondissemens  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte  a  la 
population  des  deux  sexes  (1817,  1818,  1819,  1820,  et 
1821). 

idem  des  deces  dans  les  hopitaux  et  hospices  civils 


de  Paris,  evalues  pour  chacun  des  arrondissemens,  et 
rapporte  a  la  population  des  deux  sexes  (1817,  1818, 
1819,  1820,  et  1821). 

Observations  relatives  au  nombre  des  deces  dans  les 
hopitaux  et  hospices  civils  distribues  proportionnelle- 
ment  dans  chacun  des  12  arrondissemens  de  la  ville 
de  Paris  {tableau  No.  49). 

Nombre  moyen  annuel  des  deces  a  domicile  et  aux 
hopitaux  et  hospices  reunis,  pour  chacun  des  13  ar- 
rondissemens de  la  ville  de  Paris,  rapporte  a  la  popu- 
lation des  deux  sexes  (1817, 1818, 1819, 1820,  et  1821). 

Comparaison  des  nombres  respectifs  des  naissances  dans 
les  differens  mois  de  I'annee  (1770  a  1787). 

des  valeurs  rnoyennes  des  nombres  re- 
spectifs des  naissances  dans  les  differens  mois  de 
I'annee  (1770  a  1787). 

des  nombres  respectifs  des  manages  dans 


les  differens  mois  de  I'annee  (1770  a  1787). 

des  valeurs  moyennes  des  nombres  res- 


pectifs des  mariages  dans  les  differens  mois  de  I'annee 

(1770  a  17,87). 
Secours  administres  aux  individus  noyes  (1822). 

idem  (1823). 

Tableau  des  voitures  de  place,  voitures  publiques,  &c. 

dans  la  ville  de  Paris  (1824),  et  renseignemens  con- 

cernant  le  nombre  des  voyageurs. 


APPENDIX.  197 

Service  des  inhumations  (1824). 

Cimetiere  du  Nord  {Monimarlre,  1824). 

du  Sud-ouest  {Vaugirard,  1824). 

de  I'Est  (de  Mont-Louis  ou  du  Pere  la  Chaise, 

1824). 

Recapitulation  des  monumens  et  sepultures  des  trois 
cimetieres. 

Cataconibes. 

Jugemens  rendus  par  le  tribunal  de  commerce  du  de- 
partement  de  la  Seine  ;  nombre  des  faillites  et  ar- 
restations  en  vertu  de  contrainte  par  corps  (1822  et 
1823). 

Tableau  des  decisions  rendues  par  le  conseil  de  prefect- 
ure du  departement  de  la  Seine,  depuis  Pan  8  jusqu'en 
1823  inclusivement. 

Resume  general  des  levees  qui  ont  ete  faites  dans  le  de- 
partement de  la  Seine,  en  vertu  de  la  loi  du  recrutement, 
pendant  les  annees  1816,  1817,  1818,  1819,  1820,  1821, 
1822,  et  1823. 

Details  concernant  la  composition  du  contingent  et  les 
causes  d'exemption  pour  les  memes  annees. 

Tableau  des  differentes  especes  d'infirmites  ou  difform- 
ites  qui  ont  donne  lieu  a  I'application  de  Particle  14  de 
la  loi  du  recrutement,  et  du  nombre  des  jeunes  gens 
qui  ont  ete  reformes  pendant  les  m^mes  annees. 

Recapitulation  des  differentes  professions  des  jeunes 
gens  compris  dans  la  liste  departementale  du  con- 
tingent pour  les  memes  annees. 

Recherches  statistiques  relatives  a  I'ancienne  conscrip- 
tion pendant  les  annees  9,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14;  1806, 
1807,  1808,  1809,  1810,  1811,  1812,  1813,  et  1814. 

Tableau  des  maladies,  diffbrmites,  et  infirmites  qui  ont 
motive  la  reforme  des  conscrits  du  departement  de  la 
Seine,  pendant  les  annees  9,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14;  1806, 
1807,  1808,  1809,  et  1810. 

Resume  general  des  comptes  de  situation  des  hospices 
et  hopitaux  civils  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  annee  1821, 1822, 
et  1823. 

Tableau  des  indigens  secourus  a  domicile,  annee  1821, 
et  1822. 

Details  concernant  les  secours  distribues  a  domicile 
(1822). 

Tableau  des  indigens  secourus  a  domicile  (1823). 

Details  concernapo  les  secours  distribues  k  domicile 
(1823).  j^. 


198  APPENDIX. 

Tableau  comparatif  de  la  population  des  etablissemens 
hospitallers  de  la  ville  de  Paris,  en  1786,  et  en  1822. 

Resume  general  du  mouvement  de  population  des  alienes 
dans  I'hospice  de  Bicetre,  pendant  les  annees  1815, 
1816,  1817,  1818,  1819,  et  1820;  et  rapports  divers 
relatifs  aux  causes  d'alienation  et  aux  professions  des 
alienes. 

■ general  du  mouvement  de  population  des  alienees 

dans  Thospice  de  la  Salp^triere,  pendant  les  annees 
1815, 1816,  1817,  1818, 1819,  et  1820;  et  rapports  divers 
relatifs  aux  causes  4'alienation  et  aux  professions  des 
alienees, 

general  du  mouvement  de  population  des  alienes 


dans  I'hospice  de  Bicetre,  pour  Tannee  1821 ;  et  ren- 

seignemens   concernant  les   causes    d'alienation,  la 

profession,  Page,  et  la  duree  du  sejour  des  alienes  a 

i'hospice. 
general  du  mouvement  de  population  des  alienees 

dans  I'hospice  de  la  Salpetriere,  pour  I'annee  1824: 

et  renseignemens  concernant  les  causes  d'alienation, 

la  profession,  I'age,  et  la  duree  du  sejour  des  alienees 

a  I'hospice. 
Etat  des  consommations  principales  dans  la  ville  de 

Paris,  pendant  les  annees  1822,  1823,  et  1824. 
Releve  des  differens  prix  du  pain  blanc  dans  la  ville  de 

Paris,  pendant  les  annees  1821,  1822,  1823,  et  1824. 
Etat  et  prix  moyen  des  bestiaux  vendus  sur  les  marches 

de  Poissy,  Sceaux,  et  S.  Denis.   Annee  1822,  1823,  et 

1824. 
Tableau  des  prix  courans  de  la  viande  sur  pied  aux 

marches  de  Sceaux,  et  de  Poissy,  pendant  les  amines 

1822,  1823,  et  1824. 
des  engagemens   et  des  degagemens  faits   au 

Mont-de-Piete,  pendant  les  ann§es  1821,  1822, 1823,  et 

1824. 
concernant  les  recoltes  dans  les  deux  arrondisse- 

mens  ruraux  du  departement  de  la  Seine  (1822). 
idem  dans  le  departement  de  la  Seine  (1822). 


Tableau  concernant  les  recoltes  dans  les  deux  arron- 
dissemens  ruraux  du  departement  de  la  Seine  (1823). 

idem  dans  le  departement  de  la  Seine  (1823). 

concernant  les  recoltes  dans  les  deux  arrondisse- 

mens  ruraux  du  departement  de  la  Seine  (1824). 

idem  dans  le  departement  de  la  Seine  (1824). 


Fabrication  du  verre  et  du  cristal. 


APPENDIX  109 

Fabrication  do  la  biere. 

de  diverses  couleurs. 

d'encre  a  ecrire  et  d'encre  d'imprimerie. 

du  borax  par  I'acide  borique. 

RafRnage  du  camphre. 

du  sel. 

Fabrication  du  salpetre. 

de  I'iode. 

:  de  la  potasse  factice. 

d'eau  de  javelle. 

de  sous-chlorure  de  chaux. 

de  deuto-chlorure  de  mercure  {suhlimi  cor- 


'if)- 


soude. 


de  chlorate  de  potasse. 

d'acide  pyroligneux  et  d'ac6tate  de  fer  et  de 


d'acide  nitrique. 

d'acide  sulfurique. 

de  soude  et  d'acide  muriatique. 

de  sulfate  de  kinine. 

Epuration  d'huiles  de  graine. 

Fabrication  d'huile  de  pieds  de  boeuf,  onglons  aplatis  et 
colle  noire. 

de  colle  forte. 

de  suif  d'os. 

de  cordes  et  autres  produits  de  boyaux. 

de  charbon  ou  noir  animal  et  de  sel  am- 
moniac. 

de  cirage. 

Fonderies  et  forges  de  fer. 

Affinage  des  matieres  d'or  et  d'argent. 

des  matieres  plombeuses  et  argentiferes. 

Fabriques  de  plomb  ouvre. 

Tableau  de  marchandises  qui  ont  6te  exportees  al'etran- 
ger  par  la  douane  de  Paris  (1822  et  1823). 

Releve  des  quantites  de  diverses  marchandises  coloniales 
ou  exotiques  introduites  annuellement  a  Paris. 

Devis  estimatif  des  frais  de  construction  d'une  maison 
neuve,  a  Paris,  dans  des  proportions  donnees ;  et 
renseignemens  divers  relatifs  a  la  construction  des 
maisons  (1824). 

Tableau  systematique  des  ouvrages  qui  ont  ete  imprimes 
en  France,  pendant  I'annee  1824,  et  dont  une  tres- 
grande  partie  sort  des  presses  de  la  ville  de  Paris. 


200  APPENDIX. 

Tableau  comparatif  de  I'exposition  des  produits  de  I'in- 

dustrie  dans  le  departement  de   la   Seine  (1821  et 

1823). 

Rapport  fait  par  M.  le  Comte  de  Chahrol,  Conseiller 
d'etat,  Prefet  du  departement  de  la  Seine,  au  Conseil 
general  de  ce  departement,  sur  le  moyen  d'amener  et 
de  distribuer  les  eaux  dans  la  ville  de  Paris  et  sa  ban- 
lieue. 

This  enumeration  is  long,  but  it  is  more  important 
than  may  at  first  appear;  it  is  important  because  it 
tells  the  reader  at  once  what  he  can  find  by  a  reference 
to  the  volumes  in  question — it  is  more  important  be- 
cause it  shows  the  vast  extent  of  those  subjects  on 
which,  by  a  little  order  and  arrangement,  it  is  possible 
to  give  the  most  interesting  information ; — here  it  will 
appear  that  there  is  hardly  any  subject  which  can  in- 
terest the  inhabitants  of  Paris  and  the  department  of  the 
Seine,  which  maybe  curious  to  the  traveller,  or  interest- 
ing to  the  statesman,  that  the  government  has  not  found 
it  possible  to  procure  and  to  give,  not  with  perfect  ac- 
curacy, perhaps,  but  still  with  sufficient  accuracy  to 
enable  one,  on  along  series  of  years,  to  come  to  certain 
conclusions.  That  we  are  to  receive  all  statistical  docu- 
ments with  a  certain  hesitation,  I  have  already  said  in 
the  course  of  this  work  is  my  belief;  and  I  should  be  very 
cautious  in  building  up,  or  in  placing  confidence  in,  any 
improbable  theory  which  rested  upon  such  foundations. 
There  are  many  subjects,  however,  in  these  reports — 
some  the  most  interesting — which  the  system  of  admin- 
istration in  France  affords  every  facility  for  ascertaining. 
The  tables  in  question,  then,  place  the  vast  number  of  sui- 
cides,* and  the  number  of  natural  children,  in  Paris  and 
its  environs,  beyond  dispute.  These  tables  allow  you 
to  form  some  opinion  as  to  the  physical  and  moral  effect 
of  the  different  seasons,  their  effect  on  births,  deaths, 
and  marriages.  These  tables  give  you  the  general  cli- 
mate of  the  French  metropolis,  and  they  detail  to  you 
all  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  industry,  with 
the  charity,  with  the  wealth,  with  the  distress,  with 
some  of  the  most  interesting  maladies,  such  as  madness, 
that  are  to  be  found  in  the  department.  It  is  with  re- 
gret that  I  confine  myself  to  extracting  a  few  among  the 
facts  relating  to  these  subjects. 

*  The  calculation  is,  as  I  have  said,  under  the  mark 


APPENDIX.  201 

Population  in  1822.* — Paris  :  births,  26,880  ;  born  in 
marriage  at  home,  16,841 ;  hospitals,  288;  total  in  mar- 
riage, 17,129.  Out  of  marriage,  at  home,  4,896  ;  in 
hospitals,  4,765 ;  total  illegitimate,  9,751  Illegitimate 
children  recognised  at  their  birth,  2,270 ;  not  recognised, 
7,481.  Recognised  after  birth  by  celebration  of  mar- 
riage, 700  ;  otherwise  recognised,  172.  Add  (recognised 
at  birth)  2,270;  total  recognised,  3,142,  out  of  9,751. 

Violent  Deaths. — Females,  181 ;  males,  427  ;  total,  608, 
By  capital  punishments,  5.  Asphyxies,  14 ;  by  charcoal, 
38  ;  by  suffocation,  14 ;  by  drowning,  169  ;  by  firearms, 
24  ;  by  strangulation,  20 ;  by  poison,  8  ;  by  suicide,  the 
means  being  unknown,  11;  assassinated,  3;  falls,  84; 
burns,  52 ;  wounds  by  sharp  instruments,  49  ;  fractions, 
contusions,  &c.  96  ;  run  over,  20.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
that  in  all  the  easy  modes  of  death,  asphyxies,  by  char- 
coal, suffocation,  and  poison,  there  are  as  many  female 
as  male  deaths.  In  accidents  by  fire,  38  women  perish, 
and  but  14  men. 

Suicides  dans  le  Departement  de  la  Seine,  annee  1822. — 
Male,  206  ;  females,  111 ;  total,  317.  Followed  by  death; 
215.  Effected  or  tried,  not  followed  by  death,  102.  By 
unmarried  individuals,  161 ;  married,  156  ;  total,  317. 

*  The  part  on  population  is  the  best 


202 


APPENDIX. 


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APPENDIX  203 

The  average  amount  of  the  population  of  Paris  (takeu 
from  different  tables)  in  the  years    1817,  1818,  1819, 

1820,  and  1821,  is  as  follows :— Births— males,  12,337; 
females,  11,877  ;  total,  24,214.  Marriages,  G,316. 
Deaths— males,  10,906;  females,  11,410;  total,  22,316. 
Births  at  home,  of  both  sexes,  24,214,  of  which  15,472 
are  legitimate.  Proportions  of  legitimate  children  to 
marriages  will  be — marriages,  6,316;  number  of  births 
to  one  marriage,  2,  4  (1).  Natural  children,  born  at 
home,  males,  2,320 ;  females,  2,234  ;  born  at  the  lying- 
in  hospital,  males,  2,143 ;  females,  4,463 ;  total,  8,760 ; 
of  which  2,056  are  recognised. 

Marriages  between  bachelors  and  maids,  5,128  ;  with 
widows,  314.  Marriages  contracted  by  bachelors, 
5,442;  by  widowers,  874.  Between  widowers  and 
maids,  652  ;  widowers  and  widows,  222.  Total  by 
maids,  5,780  ;  total  by  widows,  536. 

According  to  the  table  of  the  married  and  unmarried 
population,  for  the  year  1817,  published  under  No.  4,  in 

1821,  we  have, 

1.  The  number  of  married  men  to  that  of  married 
women  in  the  report  is  as  128  to  129. 

2.  The  number  of  bachelors  of  all  ages  to  widowers 
is  as  11.78  to  1. 

3.  The  number  of  maids  of  all  ages  to  widows  is  as 
3.71  to  1. 

4.  The  number  of  maids  of  all  ages  to  bachelors  of 
all  ages  is  as  1.075  to  1. 

5.  The  number  of  widows  to  widowers  is  as  3.41  to  l! 
Number  of  Deaths. — At  home:  males,  6,259  ;  females, 

7,058  ;  total,  13,317.  In  hospitals  and  charitable  insti- 
tutions :  males,  3,634  ;  females,  4,082  ;  total,  7,716. 

Deaths  on  10,000  inhabitants  during  these  five  years  : 
145  males  to  163  females.  Total  number  of  deaths  in 
each  year,  21,033:  females,  11,140;  males,  9,893. 
Died  at  home,  13,317;  in  hospitals  and  benevolent  in- 
stitutions, 7,716. 

By  a  calculation  taken  from  the  year  1670  to  the 
year  1787,  it  would  appear  that  there  are  the  most 
births  in  February,  the  fewest  in  December,  and  the 
boys  seem  to  be  five  per  cent,  above  the  number  of 
girls  born  in  the  different  months.  So  in  respect  to 
marriages,  taking  the  same  period,  there  seem  to  be 
the  most  marriages  in  February,  the  fewest  in  De- 
cember. 


204  APPENDIX. 

Commerce. — Before  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  in 
1822  and  1823,  there  were  13,707  cases  decided,  and 
280  bankruptcies,  and  692  arrests  for  debt ;  out  of  the 
number  of  persons  thus  arrested,  463  were  imprisoned, 
and  223  discharged  by  making  some  arrangement. 

Charity. — City  of  Paris* — In  1786,  the  population 
in  the  different  hospitals  and  charitable  institutions  of 
Paris  was  28,855  ;  i.  e.  children,  17,672  ;  persons  in  the 
charitable  institutions,  8,162 ;  in  hospitals,  3,021.  In 
1822,  total  number  35,630 :  i.  e.  children,  20,545  ;  char- 
itable institutions,  9,990 ;  hospitals,  5,095 :  increase, 
from  1786  to  1822,  6,775  persons. 

francs,      cts. 
Revenues  of  hospitals  and  charitable 

institutions  in  1822  ....  9,849,652  94 
Expenses 9,705,689     26 

Balance  in  hand 143,963     68 


The  number  of  persons  who  received  assistance  at 
home  from  the  bureaux  of  charity  in  1822  was  54.371 : 
t.  e.  7,753  girls ;  7,657  boys ;  25,127  women ;  13,834 
men;  expense,  1,182,483  francs.  Nature  of  relief— 
561,773  loaves  of  two  kilos,  each  loaf  ;t  of  meat, 
134,939  1-2  kilos. ;  flower  to  the  meres  "nourrices,"  130 
sacks ;  tickets  for  soup,  5,500 ;  bundles  of  wood,  52,891 ; 
in  money  distributed,  40,979  francs.  The  rest  in  shoes, 
stockings,  petticoats,  shirts,  mattresses,  &c.  &c. 

*  There  is  much  valuable  information  on  this  subject  in  a  book 
entitled  "  Le  Visiteur  dii  Pauvre,"  1  vol.  in  8vo. 
t  The  kilogramme  is  equal  to  2lb.  3oz.  avo"- 


APPENDIX. 


205 


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206  APPENDIX. 

Provisions. — The  average  price  of  white  bread  is 
0.61  centimes  for  the  loaf  of  two  kilogrammes. 

The  average  price  of  cattle  at  the  various  markets, 
in  1823, — for  oxen,  first  quality,  1  fr.  03  c.  per  kilo- 
gramme ;  cows,  first  quality,  0.88  c. :  calves,  first  qual- 
ity, 1  fr.  27  c.  ;  sheep,  first  quality,  1  fr.  9  c. 

There  are  two  or  three  tables  of  which  I  more  par- 
ticularly regret  the  omission :  one,  which  gives  in  de- 
tail all  the  expenses  of  building  a  house,  the  materials 
and  the  work  necessary  for  each  part,  the  revenue  to 
be  derived  from  the  building,  and  each  part  of  the 
building,  when  constructed;  the  number  of  persons 
employed  in  the  diff*erent  departments  of  house-building, 
and  the  increase  of  houses  in  Paris.  Another,  which 
gives  the  number  of  persons  insane,  their  professions, 
the  causes  of  their  insanity,  the  length  of  time  they 
stay  in  the  establishment  of  Bicere,  &c. 

To  these  I  should  have  wished  to  add  one  at  least  of 
the  tables  in  w^hich  the  different  manufactures  of  Paris 
are  analyzed — their  number,  the  value  of  their  ma- 
chinery and  utensils,  the  designation  of  the  persons 
they  employ,  the  number  and  the  wages  of  those  per- 
sons, the  articles  they  use,  their  general  expenses,  and 
their  general  returns,  all  clearly  and  systematically 
given. 

These  tables  I  certainly  omit  with  great  regret,  but 
the  only  two  which  1  think  myself,  upon  the  whole, 
justified  in  inserting,  are  the  two  that  follow,  and  which 
give  the  double  movement  of  the  human  mind  in  the 
French  metropolis. 

*  Since  writing  this,  I  have  found  in  Dr.  Bowring's  re^iort  many 
of  these  tables  given. 


APPENDIX. 


207 


Tableau  des  Marchandises  qui  ont  ete  exportees  a  Velranger 
par  la  Douane  de  Paris.  (Annees  1823  et  1823.) 


Denomination  des  Marchandises  Exportees. 


Valeur  declar^e  pour  les 

ann 

6es. 

1822. 

1823. 

francs. 

francs. 

10,030 

142,190 

136,099 

90,210 

81,452 

45,976 

22,432 

26,238 

18,640 

11,161 

6,884 

17,544 

9,640 

250 

170 

28,680 

31,200 

11,230 

4,400 

,, 

1,650 

j> 

1,020 

9,300 

9,940 

32,945 

21,370 

,, 

3,176 

22,350 

14,020 

35,200 

40,290 

7,069 

10,580 

156,010 

95,617 

86,960 

470 

7,570 

4,460 

3,820 

10,078 

» 

3,270 

50,404 

54,170 

49,190 

7,850 

23,310 

1,070 

850 

154,064 

123,294 

6,900 

•> 

31,245 

19,260 

5,900 

8,280 

10,170 

6,530 

„ 

21,420 

Antimoine 

Armes  de  luxe 

Bimbeloterie 

Bois    cornmuns,    baguettes   dorees,  bois 

d'acajou,  liege,  &c.        .        -        -        . 

{ Vins   -        -        - 

<  Liqueurs  distillees  -        -        - 

Chandelles 

Cheveux 

„        nonouvrages     -        -        .        - 

„        ouvrages    

Cire 

„    ouvr6e       

„    non  ouvree 

Coton  en  feuilles,  file,  gomme ;  ouates     - 
Couleurs 

,,       Cochenille 

„       Diverses 

„       Encre 

,,       Noir  de  souliers  -        -        -        - 

„       Vernis 

Coutellerie 

Crayons    

Cuivre 

„     dore,  battu,  lamine 

„     ouvre 

Eau  minerale 

Etain  ouvre       -        -    _    - 
Farineux  et  pates  d'ltalie  - 
Fanons  de  baleine     ...        - 
Fer 
„  de  tr6filerie  (Fil  de  fer)       - 

„  ouvre 

„  plating,  6tame,  fer-blanc 

„  carbonate  (Acier  ouvre)      -        -        - 

Feutres  (Chapeaux)         .        .        .        . 

,     .  <  blanchi  -        -        - 

^..        J'^etors  \,^^^       .        .        . 

*  ^  •     i     .       ^1/    jblanc      . 

<  coton  fil6    ^tgij^t       .       .        . 

Fruits  sees  et  confits        -       .       .       . 


208 


APPENDIX 


Tableau  des  Marchandises  qui  ont  ete  exportees  a  Vetranger 
par  la  Douane  de  Paris.    (Annees  1822  et  1823.) 


Valeur  doclarfeepour 

D6non 

lination  des  Marchandises  Exportees. 

les  annees. 

1822. 

1823. 

francs. 

fraacs. 

Graines, 

semences  de  jardins,  de  fleurs  et 

de  prairies     -        . '      .       . 

23,910 

18,240 

Horlogerie 

» 

Ouvrages  montes 

738,479 

231,570 

Fournitures  d'horlogerie    - 

1,050 

19,710 

Habillemens  neufs 

H 

107,020 

Instrumens 

» 

Outils  a  metiers 

35,110 

41,500 

» 

Caracteres  d'imprimerie    - 

65,825 

50,660 

Gardes  a  carder 

25,604 

30,352 

» 

Machines  et  mecaniques  - 

de  sciences  et  d'arts  liberaux    - 

153,510 

120,623 

jy 

94,189 

98,063 

M 

de  musique        .... 

163,975 

136,491 

Medicamens 

„ 

composes 

107,511 

158,200 

)> 

Sues  vegetaux,  especes  medici- 

nales 

>> 

26,623 

Mercerie 

, 

„ 

commune 

1,947,496 

1,635,992 

,, 

fine 

1,254,478 

1,506,060 

M6taux 

communs 

»> 

plaques      

277,539 

208,420 

argent^s  et  dores 

1,555,957 

1,419,538 

» 

verniss^s  et  moires    -        -        - 

823,212 

626,820 

» 

moires  m6t.alliques    - 

22,301 

» 

M6taux  pr^cieux 

» 

Argent  brut  ou  lingots 

» 

400 

» 

Or  (monnay6)   ...        - 

>> 

44,500 

j> 

Or  battu  en  feuilles  - 

16,886 

23,720 

» 

Or  file,  sole       .... 

>> 

4,600 

>> 

Or  brut,  lingots  -        -       -       - 

3,120 

» 

Bijouterie  d'or  ou  de  vermeil    - 

29,758 

136,990 

» 

Bijouterie  idem,  ornee  de  pierres 

etperles  fines 

451,700 

370,090 

» 

Bijouterie  idem,  orn6e  de  pierres 

et  perles  ordinaires 

5> 

36,210 

» 

Orfevrerie  d'or  ou  de  vermeil 

297,994 

238,600 

» 

Orf6vrerie,  argent     ... 

269,971 

386,980 

» 

Orfevrerie,  platine     - 

4,690 

>» 

»» 

Bijouterie,  argent 

71,721 

59,590 

»» 

Bijouterie,  platine     - 

800 

» 

APPENDIX. 


209 


Tableau  des  Marchandises  qui  out  ete  exporlees  a  Vetranger 
par  la  Douane  de  Paris,  (Annees  1822  et  1823.) 


Denomination  des  Marchandises  Exportfeea. 


Meubles 

Modes 

„    (Ouvrages  de)  -        -        -        -        - 

„    Fleurs  artificielles    -        .        -        - 

Moutarde 

Objets  de  collection  hors  de  commerce 

„    Histoire  naturelle     -        -        -        - 

„    Curiosites 

„    Statues  et  bustes  en  bronze 

„     Idem  en  marbre        -        -        .        - 

„    Tableaux  -        - 

„    Dessins  a  la  main    -        -        -        - 

„    Medailles  .        .        .        - 

Papier 

„    carton  moule 

„    blanc 

,,    colorie,  pour  reliures        .        .        - 

„    peint,  pour  tentures 

„    Librairie  -        -        -        - 

„    Cartes  geographiques 

„     Idem  a  jouer 

„    Gravures  ------ 

„    Musique  gravee        -        -        -        . 

Parapluies 

Parfumerie 

Peaux 

„    preparees  ou  appretees     -        -        - 

„    ouvrees    

Pelleteries 

„    ouvrees    

„  non  ouvrees  -  -  .  -  . 
Perles  fines  (non  mont6es)  .  .  . 
Pierres,  &c. 

„    Marbre  (ouvre)         -        .        .        . 

„    Albatre  (ouvre)         .        .        .        . 

„    Platre  moule 

„  a.  aiguiser  et  a  feu  -  -  -  - 
Pierres  gemmes,  diamans  et  pierres  de 

couleur  (montees  et  non  montees) 
Plants  d'arbres  ------ 

Plumes 

„    a  ecrire    ..--.- 

„    de  parure 

18* 


Valeur  diiclaree  pour  les 
annees. 


francs. 

438,558 

1,730,083 

481,209 

30,973 

40,599 
28,078 
24,798 
11,956 
410,200 
6,800 
10,840 

82,410 
93,800 
21.080 
909,484 
2,473,969 
39,450 

223,381 

46,999 

111,274 

586,244 

491,400 
1,417,056 


363,642 
131,900 

6,270 
19,348 
12,845 


91,800 


292,999 


francs. 

507,912 

1,510,452 

518,554 

19,300 

128,962 

13,560 

37,156 

3,392 

339,058 

1,792 

8,256 

115,770 
68,910 
34,620 

726,742 

2,634,050 

36,510 

20,860 

218,500 
56,310 
51,530 

613,840 

658,860 
579,150 

34,500 
531,560 
121,900 

11,120 
9,410 

16,624 
4,124 

86,900 
41,190 

8,090 
278,660 


210 


APPENDIX. 


Tableau  des  Marchandises  qui  ont  ele  export^es  a  Vetranger 
par  la  Douane  de  Paris.  (Annees  1822  et  1823). 


Valeur  declaree  pour  lea 

Denomination  des  Marchandis 

es  Export^es. 

ann6es. 

J  822. 

1823. 

francs. 

francs. 

Polls  et  laines 

„    en  masses  (Merinos) 

. 

1,470 

6,330 

„    laines  filees 

. 

45,704 

33,860 

Poterie 

„    de  gr^s  fin 

. 

41,395 

31,496 

„    Porcelaine 

. 

1,740,231 

1,451,730 

Produits  chimiques  - 
Sellerie  en  cuir  et  autres  - 

- 

103,742 

81,818 

. 

111,789 

157,146 

Sucreries.  (Bonbons,  &c.) 

. 

22,289 

26,770 

Soie 

„    a  coudre,  par  petits  echeveaux 

51,340 

37,560 

„    a  tapisserie 

. 

8,710 

5,090 

Tabac  fabriqu^  - 

. 

M 

33,310 

Tabletterie 

. 

227,150 

247,850 

Teintures,  tannins,  safrans, 

cochenilles, 

&€.---- 

- 

357,607 

468,415 

Tissus  de  lin  et  chanvre 

„    Toiles      - 

. 

168,236 

121,500 

„    Cordages 

. 

» 

1,900 

„     Batistes  et  linons     - 

. 

974,818 

814,230 

„    Dentelles 

. 

168,118 

56,758 

„    Bonneterie 

. 

6,510 

9,150 

„    Passementerie  - 

45,388 

50,890 

„    Rubans    - 

. 

7,180 

1,490 

Tissus  de  laine 

„    Couvertures     - 

. 

1,110 

1,780 

„    Tapis 

. 

22,640 

30,820 

„    Casimirs  - 

- 

247,849 

417,450 

„    Draps 

. 

334,129 

208,940 

„     Schals      - 

- 

937,946 

1,178,630 

„    Bonneterie 

- 

28,650 

12,790 

„    Passementerie 

. 

30,340 

40,390 

Tisius  de  poils  angora 

„     Schals      - 

. 

4,330 

>j 

„    Bonneteries      - 

. 

20 

7,200 

Tissus  de  crin.  (etoffes  et  crin  fris^) 

23,312 

14,915 

Tissus  de  soie 

„    Etoffes 

4,755,985 

4,824,780 

„    Idem  broch^  en  or  fin  et  faux   - 

M 

6,900 

„    Schals  soie  et  laine 

- 

2,087,255 

458,310 

„    Idem  pure  soie 

. 

>> 

445,810 

„    Gaze 

. 

778,594 

844,600 

„    Cr^pe       .        -        . 

-        -        -1 

77,962 

303,460 

APPENDIX. 


211 


*M  des  Marchandises  qui  out  He  exportees  a  Vetranger 
par  la  Douane  de  Paris.  (Annees  1822  et  1823.) 


Denomination  des  Marchandises  Export6es. 


Tissus  de  sole 

„    Tulle 

„    Dentelles  de  sole,  dites  blondes 
,    Bonneterie 

„    Passementerie  d'or  ou  d'arg.  fin. 

„     Idem  d'or  ou  d 'argent  faux 

„     Idem  sans  melange  -        -        -        - 

„    Rubans 

„    Bourre  de  sole,  fa9on  cachemire 
Tissus  de  coton 

n    Yoiles  denies.   (Calicos.) 

„    Idem  blanches.  {Idem.)    - 

„    Idem  peintes  et  imprimees 

„    Tulle       - 

„    Piques.  (Basins.)     -        .        -        - 

„     Schals  et  mouchoirs 

„    Couvertures 

„    Bonneterie 

„    Chapeaux 

„    Passementerie  -        - 

Vannerie 

„    Feuilles  tissues  et  non  tressees 

„    Paniers  d'osier  .        .        .        . 

„    Nattes  ou  tresses     -        -        .        - 

„    Chapeaux  de  paille  et  6corce  - 

VaniUe 

Verres  et  cristaux.  (Glace.) 

Verreries  et  cristal 

Verreries,  verres  a  lun.'^s,  a  cadrans,  tallies 

etpohs 

Voitures  a  ressorts 

Viande  de  bouch.  et  pore  sal^,  volaille  et 

gibier 

Totaux  - 


Valeur  declarfee  pour  les 
annees. 


1823. 


38,408 

84,550 

593,310 

513,982 

540,490 

606,590 

76,343 

39,520 

34,208 

20,290 

415,889 

436,990 

1,556,824 

1,081,060 

>> 

395,780 

820 

16,454 

6,820 

56,713 

52,870 

,, 

2,200 

78,483 

97,000 

44,030 

61,580 

10,916 

5,410 

27,440 

18,200 

,, 

13,210 

28,621 

45,190 

42,009 

24,040 

,, 

6,920 

24,065 

24,280 

196,041 

402,830 

)) 

20,800 

5) 

200,756 

328,488 

266,804 

)) 

25,490 

33,188 

7,272 

n 

6,490 

36,475,745 

35,279,703 

212 


APPENDIX. 


Marchandtses  exportees  sous  la  reserve  de  la  prime. 


Trimestres. 

Ann6e  1822.             Anu6e  1823. 

l.r.  .                    .... 

2.e    .                    .... 

15:    :    :    :    •    : 

francs.        cents. 

1,282,735  65 
1,675,466  39 
2,160,764  95 
1,480,238  90 

francs. 

1,192,981 
1,499,253 
3,225,418 
2,737,482 

Totaux  g6neraux  - 

6,599,203    9 

8,655,134 

APPENDIX. 


213 


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O    OD 


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■g"5 


05   « 

CO  S 


o.i: 


a 

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ES  2  = 


05    sT  »    C    S 

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«-"«£«  .2^.2 

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Co  I  a 

« = » s 

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d     e<     i-H  PJ  rH  I—  f^ 


t-  o 


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SIS' 
pea 


§ 
I 


214 


APPENDIX. 


OT^ 


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«*-     e    -a 


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OC  3 


o  rs  a.    I 


APPENDIX.  2  1 0 


Census  of  Paris. 

1833. 

In  714,000  inhabitants,  there   are  446,300   men,   and 
267,700  women. 
340  high  pubhc  functionaries. 
70,000  national  guards. 
490  persons  in  the  law. 
1,140  members  of  the  institute  and  the  univer- 
sity. 
18,460  clerks. 
47,000  students. 
19,000  soldiers  in  garrison. 
77,200  inscribed  indigent  poor ;  but  the  office  of 

charity  relieves  nearly  90,000. 
80,000  servants. 
266,000  living  on  their  incomes. 
290,800  day  labourers. 
13,700  sick,  infirm,  or  old,  in  the  hospitals. 
12,160  foundlings. 
12  parishes. 
27  chapels  of  ease. 
38  religious  establishments. 
2  basilics. 

19  libraries.  i 

23  royal  schools. 
9  royal  colleges. 
269  pensioners  of  both  sexes. 
26  theatres. 
84  barracks. 

10  prisons. 
16  gates. 

11  markets. 

4  aqueducts. 
210  fountains. 
3,900  grocers. 
600  bakers. 
2,000  wine  shops. 
9  cemeteries. 

12  mayoralties,  forming  twelve  divisions. 
48  wards. 

1,190  streets. 
120  blind  alleys. 


216  APPENDIX. 

13  enclosures. 
30  arcades. 
73  squares. 
33  quays. 
20  bridges. 
98  toll-houses. 
23  boulevards. 
8  palaces. 

The  annual  expenditure  of  Paris  is  estimated  at 
894,032,893  francs,  equal  to  about  36,000,000^.,  which,  on 
a  population  of  875,000,  gives  an  average  of  about  1,120 
francs  a  head  ;  and  this  division  forms  the  basis  for 
that  calculation  I  have  given  from  M.  Millot.  The 
annual  consumption  of  food  and  drink  in  Paris  is 
about  12,349,800/.,  giving  each  individual  for  his  share 
14/.  Is.  lid. 


EXTRACTED  FRO.\I  DR.  BOWRING  S  VERV  INTERESTING  REPORT. 

Questions  of    the  British    Commissioners  concerning  the 
Workmen  of  Paris. 

1.  What  has  the  fall  in  salaries  or  wages  been  auring 
the  last  five  years  ? 

2.  How  many  days  in  the  week  do  workmen,  in  gene- 
ral, labour  ?   and  how  many  hours  in  the  day  ? 

3.  In  what  trades  is  it  customary  to  take  apprentices  ^ 

4.  At  what  age,  and  on  what  terms  is  that  done  ? 

5.  Do  workmen,  in  general,  spend  the  whole  of  their 
income  ? 

6.  Do  they  frequently  place  their  savings  in  the 
savings  banks  ? 

7.  On  what  day  of  the  week  do  they  receive  their 
wages  ? 

Answers  given  by  an  intelligent  Parisian  Workman. 

1.  The  fall  in  prices  was  but  immaterial  during  the 
three  years  preceding  the  Revolution  ;  it  has  only  been 
important  since  that  epoch,  and  has  even  yet  much 
affected   only    trades    of   luxury, — such   as    jewelry, 


APPENDIX.  2  It 

carving,  gilding,  cabinet-work,  engraving  on  gems 
watch  and  clock-making,  coach-making,  &c.  In  these 
trades  the  fall  has  been  from  1  fr.  to  3  fr.  per  day  ;  in 
others  it  has  been  but  from  50  c.  to  1  fr.,  and  in  some, 
but  a  small  number  it  is  true,  no  fall  has  taken  place. 

2.  In  general,*  workmen  labour  all  the  week,  and  in 
some  trades  even  half  the  Sunday.  About  one-eighth 
part  of  the  whole  may  be  excepted, — for  those  who 
have  contracted  the  habit  of  making  holydays  of  Sunday 
and  Monday.  The  time  of  work  is  twelve  hours  per 
day  for  builders — such  as  masons,  locksmiths,  carpen- 
ters ;  in  other  trades  thirteen  hours,  from  which,  how- 
ever, two  hours  are  to  be  deducted  for  meal-times. 

3.  Masons  and  stone-cutters  are  the  only  trades  that 
do  not  take  apprentices  at  Paris :  workmen  of  these 
classes  coming  from  the  country  sufficiently  acquainted 
with  their  business.    All  others  receive  apprentices. 

4.  Boys  are  put  out  as  apprentices  from  the  age  of  12 
to  14.  In  some  trades  they  were  formerly  boarded  in 
the  master's  house,  but  this  system  is  almost  abolished. 
The  time  of  apprenticeship  is  three  years  in  easy  trades, 
and  four  years  in  those  of  greater  difficulty  ;  during  this 
term  the  apprentice  receives  no  pay. 

5.  Workmen  generally  expend  all  they  earn. 

6.  We  may  safely  affirm  that  hardly  one-sixth  of  them 
are  economical  enough  to  put  any  thing  into  the 
savings  banks. f 

It  may  be  reckoned  that  one-half  of  the  workmen 
belong  to  benefit  societies ;  the  members  of  these  so- 

*  I  believe  the  words  "in  general"  to  be  incorrect. 

t  The  following  is  the  state  and  progress  of  these  banks.  The 
first  institution  of  savings'  banks  was  in  1818.  They  succeeded  but 
very  slowly ;  but  are  now  spreading,  and  exist  in  Bordeaux,  Douai, 
Dunkerque,  Havre,  Lyons,  Luneville,  Metz,  Mulhausen,  Nantes, 
Nimes,  Orleans,  Paris,  Rennes,  Reims,  Rouen,  St.  Etienne,  Toulon, 
Toulouse,  Tours,  Troyes,  and  Versailles,  and  most  of  the  other  great 
owns  seem  inclined  to  adopt  them. 

SAVINGS  BANK  OF  PARIS. 


Comparative  Tabic. 

Years. 

Invested. 

Drawn. 

Francs. 

Francs. 

1829    -    . 

•     -     6,278,134     -     -     - 

1,105,700 

1830    -    • 

■     -     5,195,651     -     -     - 

3,756,911 

1831     - 

-     -    2,403,563     -    -    - 

3,318,368 

1832     - 

-     -     3,613,221     -     -     - 

2,200,735 

..  I.-K 

19 

218  APPENDIX. 

cieties  impose  upon  themselves  a  slight  contribution  of 
1  fr.  50  c.  per  month  ;  in  return  for  which  they,  in  case 
of  sickness,  receive  medicines  gratis,  are  attended,  also 
gratuitously,  by  the  physician  employed  by  the  society, 
and  have  an  allowance  of  2  fr.  per  day  till  their  com- 
plete recovery. 

These  societies  are  very  numerous  in  Paris  ;  the 
most  numerous  does  not  contain  more  than  200  or  300 
members ;  and,  according  to  a  statement  drawn  up  by 
the  Philanthropic  Society,  the  poorest,  even,  has  a  fund 
of  from  2,000  to  3,000  fr.  placed  either  in  the  savings 
bank,  or  at  the  Mont  de  Piete. 

7.  It  is  in  general  on  each  Saturday  night  that  the 
workmen  receive  their  pay :  in  a  few  trades  only  are 
they  paid  by  the  fortnight. 


Paris,  28lh  February ^  1832. — Food  of  the   Workmen  of 
Paris. 

This  may  be  arranged  under  four  heads  : — 

1.  The  terrace-makers  and  labourers  live  very  eco- 
nomically, not  expending  more  than  from  16  to  17  sous 
per  day  :  in  the  morning  they  repair  to  the  low  eating- 
houses,  called  gargottes,  where  for  7  sous  they  get 
soup,  and  a  plate  of  meat  with  vegetables ;  their  custom 
is,  to  breakfast  on  the  soup  and  vegetables,  and  carry 
the  meat  away  with  them  for  their  dinner. 

Thus  these  7  sous,  two  pounds  of  bread  8  sous,  and 
perhaps  for  wine  2  sous,  make  17  sous. 

2.  The  masons,  paviers,  locksmiths,  &c.  do  not  ex- 
ceed 20  or  21  sous ;  their  only  addition  to  the  above 
being  4  or  5  sous  for  supper.     21  sous. 

3.  The  other  classes  of  trades  shown  upon  the  list, 
such  as  carvers,  saddlers,  gilders,  printers,  mechanics, 
upholsterers,  &c.,  spend  from  25  to  27  sous  ;  thus: — 

Soup  and  meat  for  breakfast       .        .        .7 

Dinner 6 

Wine  at  ditto 6 

Two  pounds  of  bread 8 

Sous    27 


APPENDIX.  219 

4.  The  fourth  class  may,  perhaps,  spend  from  30  to  36 
sous.  This  class  comprises  the  jewellers,  engravers, 
watch-makers,  tailors,  &c. 

Breakfast,  estimated  at    .        .        .        .      12       ^ 
Dinner,  at  an  ordinary,  at  per  head      .  22 

Other  expenses 2 

Sous    36 


Lodging. — The  workmen  who  have  their  own  furni- 
ture may  get  apartments  for  from  40  fr.  to  100  fr.  per 
annum  :  they  who  hire  furnished  rooms  pay — 

Francs 
per  annum. 

For  a  whole  room,  twelve  francs  per  month        .  144 
For  a  room  with  more  than  one  lodger,  eight 

francs  per  month 96 

For  the  half  of  a  bed,  five  francs  per  month     .     .  60 

Clothing. — The  expense  for  clothing  cannot  be  pre- 
cisely estimated,  from  the  difference  existing  in  the 
dress  of  the  various  classes  of  workmen.  The  masons, 
smiths,  &c.,  who  wear  very  coarse  clothing,  do  not  ex- 
pend more  than  100  or  120  fr.  for  dress,  washing,  shoes, 
&c. ;  while  the  jewellers,  watch-makers,  and  engravers 
spend  at  least  300  fr.,  perhaps  350  fr.,  but  not  more. 

Amusements. — We  shall  not  here  speak  of  those 
thriftless  men*  who,  on  the  Sunday  and  Monday,  spend 
three-fourths  of  their  weekly  earnings  in  intemperance, 
and  who,  to  defray  their  daily  expenses,  contract  debts 
they  never  pay,  but  of  prudent  men  who  base  their 
expenses  on  their  income. 

Some  of  these  content  themselves  with  spending  25  to 
30  sous  in  the  houses  of  entertainment  in  the  suburbs  ; 
others  frequent  the  public  balls  of  Paris,  and  spend  in 
entrance  money  and  refreshments  from  40  sous  to  3  fr., 
perhaps  3  fr.  50  c. ;  others  go  to  the  theatres,  where 
the  price  of  admittance  to  the  pit  varies  with  the  dif- 

*  All  my  inquiries  and  observations  lead  me  to  believe  that  these 
thriftless  men,  as  Dr.  Bov^rring  calls  them,  form  a  considerable  part 
of  the  Parisian  workmen     But  as  I  shall  treat  this  subject  at  length 
elsewhere,  I  do  not  now  enter  upon  it. 
K3 


220  Appendix. 

ferent  houses ;  there  are  some  of  1  fr.  25  c,  and  others 
of  2  fr.  50  c. ;  we  may  add  about  50  c.  for  unforeseen 
expenses,  raising  the  whole  to  from  1  fr.  75  c.  to  3  fr. 

There  are,  moreover,  secret  expenses,  on  which  we 
can  say  nothing. 

[Answers  from   the    Workmen  of  Paris   to 
Questions  of  the  British  Com7nissioners. 


The  Official  Returns  for  1827  in  Paris,  give  for  the 
average  price  of  labour  the  following  statements : — 

Number  of  Average. 

Workpeople.  Francs. 

1054    Tobacco   manufacturers,   highest    rate, 

fr.  3-35  per  day,  lowest,  fr.  1*45      .     .       2-08^ 
1000  Fan-makers ;     men,    fr.    2'50,    women, 

fr.  1-25,  children,  c.  60. 
4116  Paper-stainers ;  men,  fr.  3  to  4,  women, 
fr.  1-50  to  2,  children,  c.  80  to  fr.  1. 

600  Wool- washers 1*80 

400  Ditto,  in  the  fleece        ....  1*70 

1050  Blanket  manufacturers     ....       2*50 

200  Lapidaries 4*00 

3345  Working  jewellers,  lowest  rate,  fr.  2'50 

highest,  fr.  4*50. 
925  Marble-workers   and   statuaries,    lowest 

rate,  fr.  2-50,  highest,  fr.  6-00. 
750  Glass  manufacturers        .         .        .        .       4*00 
417  Lithographic  printers,  lowest  rate,  fr.TSO, 
highest,  fr.  5  00. 
46  Gas-work  labourers         .         .        .        .2*75 


END  OF  VOL. 


FRANCE, 


SOCIAL,    LITERARY,    POLITICAL. 


BY  HENRY  LYTTON  BULWER,  M.P. 


Nature  and  truth  are  the  same  everywhere,  and  reason  shows  them  everywhere  alike.  But  the 
accidents  and  other  causea  which  give  rise  and  growth  to  opinions,  both  in  speculation  and  prac- 
tice, are  of  infinite  variety. — Solin^tiroke  on  the  true  Use  of  Httirement  and  Slrjidy. 

Reverere  conditores  Deos,  numina  Deorum.  Reverere  gloriam  veterem,  et  hanc  ipsam  senectu- 
tem  quae  in  honiine  venerabilis,  in  urbibus  sacra  est.  Sit  apud  te  honor  antiquati,  sit  ingentibus 
facti,  sit  fabulis  quoque,  nihil  ei  cujusquam  dijnitate,  nihil  ex  libertate,  nihil  etiam  ex  jactationa 
decerpseiis.— Kintu*  Maximo  Tern  S. 


IN     TWO     VOLUMES. 
VOL.    II. 


NEW    YORK-. 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

rBANXLIN    SQUARE. 

1857. 


BOOK    II. 
HISTORICAL    CHANGES 


THE  RESTORATION. 


CONTENTS 


THE    SECOND    VOLUME. 

BOOK     II. 
HISTORICAL   CHANGES. 

PAGE 

The  Restoration 7 

Review  of  the  Restoration 37 

The  Ordonnances 40 

Revolution  of  1830 41 

Review  of  the  Revolution  of  1830       ....  67 

The  state  of  Parties  since  the  Revolution    .     .  73 

BOOK    III. 

PREDOMINANT  INFLUENCES. 

Women 87 

Military  Influence 104 

Literary  Influence 115 

Literature 138 

History 142 

Drama 162 

Appendix 221 

A2 


RESTORATION. 


PERIOD  I. 

Louis  XVIII.  died,  having  long  in  reality  ceased  to  reigii — Never  had 
prince  assumed  a  crown  with  more  difficulties  than  Louis  assumed 
his  in  1814 — "What  party  could  he  rely  on  for  support  ? — Universal  di- 
vision where  there  was  the  appearance  of  universal  content— The 
momentary  force  of  the  Restoration,  its  permanent  weakness — The 
first  discontent  felt  by  the  military — Causes  of  discontent — 'iTie 
battle  of  Waterloo  decided  against  the  army — The  eventsof  the  Hun- 
dred days  favourable  to  the  Bourbons — Moderate  policy  of  Louis 
XVIIl.  on  his  return — The  persecutions,  however,  which  follow, 
and  which  unite  the  army  and  the  patriots — HowfarLouisXVIH. 
was  to  blame — M.  de  Talleyrand  resigns — Conflict  between  the 
two  sects  of  royalists  for  power — Louis  XVI II.  at  the  head  of  one, 
Comte  d'Artois  at  the  head  of  the  other — The  administration  of 
the  Due  de  Richelieu  a  compromise  between  these  two  parties — 
The  governments  of  Messrs.  Dessolle  and  Decazes  are  the  govern- 
ments of  Louis  XVIII. — The  character  of  Mons.  Decazes — The 
government  of  Dessolle  and  Decazes  based  on  the  law  of  election 
— King  frightened  by  the  election  of-  Gregoire — The  state  of  the 
ministry  and  the  chamber — A  government  must  have  some  ten- 
dency— Mons.  Decazes  determines  on  turning  to  the  less  liberal 
side  for  support — Left  by  Mons.  Dessolle — Forms  a  new  ministr}^ — 
Means  to  alter  Law  of  Election — Assassination  of  Due  de  Berri — 
Mons.  Decazes  goes  out — Fatal  effects  of  his  late  policy — Review 
of  his  government — The  enemies  of  the  throne  take  courage ;  men 
in  general  become  more  despondent  as  to  the  restoration,  and  tho 
Tlirone  gains  foes  hitherto  not  opposed  to  it. 

I  NOW  approach  a  time  at  which  the  impartiality  of 
posterity  has  not  yet  arrived.  Amid  the  clamour  of 
contending  parties  struggling  upon  the  ruins  of  a  fallen 
throne — where  is  the  voice  to  render  the  "restoration" 
justice  ?  Separated  from  his  friend,  enslaved  by  his 
family,  debauched*  by  his  mistress,  surrounded  by  the 

*  The  details  that  are  given  of  the  last  days  of  Louis  XVIIL,  of 

his  mental  profligacy,  of  his  physician's  advice,  of  Madame 's 

influence  and  endearments,  would  form  a  melancholy  chapter  in  the 
history  of  the  fallen  dynasty. 


8  RESTORATION. 

last  pomps  of  religion,  and  thoughtful  for  a  dynasty  of 
which  he  knew  the  faults  and  had  predicted  the  mis- 
fortunes, the  brother  of  Louis  XVI.,  the  admirer  and 
imitator  of  Henry  IV.,  the  uncle  of  Henry  V.,  a  prince 
of  many  royal  virtues — saw  a  life  of  vicissitudes  draw- 
ing to  a  close.  The  sceptre  he  was  still  presumed  to 
wield  had  already  fallen  from  his  hand  ;  as  much  from 
indolence  as  impotence,  he  had  for  years  renounced 
the  hope  of  governing  an  undivided  people,  and  con- 
sented to  a  system  which  he  had  the  wisdom  to  com- 
prehend, but  not  the  force  to  resist.  On  the  6th  of 
September,  1 824,  Louis  XVIII.  terminated  an  exist- 
ence which  his  sufferings  rendered  wretched,  and  of 
which  it  is  too  probable  that  his  excesses  shortened 
the  duration.  He  may  be  said  to  have  reigned  for  ten 
years,  and  the  greatness  which  he  had  shown  in  his 
misfortunes  had  been  at  times  perceptible  during  his 
power.  Never  was  crown  so  difficult  to  wear  as  that 
which,  in  the  right  of  hereditary  superstition,  foreign 
hands  had  placed  upon  this  king's  head. 

By  what  party  was  he  to  support  himself?  From 
what  elements  could  the  government  be  formed,  which 
would  assure  him  a  prosperous  and  peaceful  reign  ? 
The  armies  that  escorted  him  to  the  Tuileries  had 
marched  over  the  prostrate  legions  of  defeated  France  ; 
the  sovereigns  who  gave  him  a  kingdom  were  the  suc- 
cessful enemies  of  the  people  whose  interests  he  was 
come  to  cherish.  He  could  not  rely  upon  his  army 
then,  for  he  was  the  friend  of  the  stranger ;  he  could 
not  rely  upon  his  allies,  for  he  was  the  sovereign  of 
France. 

There  was  a  party  who  had  followed  his  fortunes — 
of  gallant  lineage  ;  of  tried  fidelity  ;  they  had  a  hold 
upon  his  prejudices,  a  right  to  his  affections,  and  they 
claimed  to  be  the  counsellors  of  the  monarch  whom 
they  had  obeyed  and  honoured  as  the  exile.  But  this 
party,  in  following  the  fortunes  of  the  King  of  France, 
had  stood  for  twenty  years  opposed  to  the  fortunes  of 
the  French  people  ;  they  were  aliens  in  the  country 
they  wished  to  govern  :  a  deluge  had  swept  over  all 


PERIOD  I.  9 

things  since  their  departure  ;  and  in  vain  they  sought 
for  the  ancient  world  which  they  found  everywhere 
altered,  and  which  they  wished  to  find  everywhere  the 
same.  There  were  other  parties  ;  there  were  the  par- 
ties of  the  Revolution ;  the  parties  of  the  Empire  ; 
there  were  the  parties  that  had  stormed  the  Tuileries 
on  the  10th  of  August ;  voted  the  death  of  Louis  XVI. 
on  the  21st  of  January  (1793);  assisted  Bonaparte 
on  the  18th  of  Brumaire  (1799)  ;  and  vowed  allegiance 
to  his  empire  on  the  2d  of  December  (1804) ;  there 
were  the  Republicans  by  principle,  the  Imperialists  by 
gratitude,  habit,  and  interest.  Could  the  royalists  be 
employed  ?  Could  the  republicans  be  gained  ?  Could 
the  imperialists  be  trusted?  There  was  universal 
division,  even  where  there  was  the  appearance  of  uni- 
versal content.  The  emigration  rejoiced  at  the  idea 
of  a  court  which  would  breathe  life  into  the  forgotten 
memories  of  Versailles  ;  the  more  liberal  of  the  old 
assemblies  and  the  senate  equally  rejoiced  at  the 
substitution  of  a  constitutional  king  for  a  military  des- 
pot ;  and  the  high  dignitaries  of  the  empire  imagined 
for  a  time  that  their  services  would  be  remembered,  and 
their  origin  forgotten. 

The  momentary  force  of  the  restoration  was  in  its 
giving  hopes  to  all ;  the  permanent  weakness  of  the  res- 
toration was,  in  the  necessity  of  its  giving  disappoint- 
ment to  all.  The  satisfaction  was  immediate  ;  it  sur- 
rounded the  horse  of  the  Comte  d'Artois,  and  applauded 
his  graceful  air  ;  it  followed  the  coach  of  the  royal  exile 
from  Hartwell,  and  in  spite  of  the  bonnet  of  the  Du- 
chesse  d'Angouleme,*  andtheEnglishified  aspect  of  the 
Due  de  Berri,  remarked  the  wit  of  Louis's  conversation, 
the  dignity  of  his  manner,  and  the  benevolence  of  his 
countenance.  The  satisfaction  was  immediate — the 
dissatisfaction  gradually  developed  itself — until  each 
party  had  assaulted  the  system  which  each  party  had 
expected  to  control.     The  military  were  the  first  to 

*  Nothing,  however,  tended,  at  the  time,  more  to  add  to  the  dishke, 
and  to  increase  the  contempt  with  which  a  certain  portion  of  the 
Parisians  regarded  the  royal  family,  than  to  find  them— *o  ill  dressed. 

A3 


10  RESrORATION. 

feel  disgusted  at  the  change.  The  veterans  of  the 
"  vieille  garde"  of  the  "  grande  armee"  could  little  brook 
the  insolence  of  those  favoured  troops,  who,  reviving 
the  old  names,  the  old  uniforms,  the  old  prejudices  of 
a  by-gone  system,  considered  it  their  principal  dis- 
tinction to  have  escaped  the  contaminating  victories  of 
a  usurper.  Offended  at  the  loss  of  their  eagles, 
passionately  fond  of  their  ancient  colours,  the  soldiery 
received  a  new  provocation  in  the  order  to  change  the 
numbers  of  their  regiments ;  and  obeyed,  with  ill- 
smothered  indignation,  the  command  which  severed 
them  from  the  last  of  their  military  recollections ; 
and  if  the  soldiery  considered  themselves  aggrieved, 
so  also  did  the  generals  and  the  marshals  of  the  empire 
deem  ihey  had  their  causes  of  complaint.  The  recent 
genealogies  of  the  camp  lost  their  illustration  before 
the  ancient  chivalry  of  the  court.  Trusted  with  high 
commands,  the  great  officers  of  Napoleon  were  treated 
with  little  respect ;  while  their  wives — long  accustomed 
to  the  homage  of  that  ardent  and  warlike  youth  who 
passed  with  alternate  passions  from  the  battle  to  the 
ball — long  accustomed  to  have  their  charms  undisputed 
and  adored,  now  galled  by  the  contempt  of  a  new  race 
of  rivals,  now  disconcerted  by  the  formal  "hauteur"  of 
the  old  courtier,  and  the  supercilious  disregard  of  the 
young  noble,  filled  the  "  salons"  of  the  Queen  Hor- 
tense,  listened  with  sparkling  eyes  to  the  vivacious 
sallies  of  Madame  Hamelin,*  and  sighed  for  the  grace- 
ful confidences  of  Josephine,  and  the  splendid  days  of 
Marie  Louise.  The  army  then  was  the  first  to  be  dis- 
gusted ;  the  battle  of  Waterloo  decided  that  the  wishes 
of  the  army  could  not  be  obeyed. 

Nothing  could  have  happened  more  fortunate  for  the 
Bouroons  than  the  events  of  the  hundred  days ;  those 
events  had  alarmed  the  civil  part  of  the  nation  at  the 

*  The  hundred  days  might  fairly  be  called  "  the  revolution  of 
the  women  ;"  and  among  the  ladies  engaged  in  the  intrigues  of  the 
time,  the  most  conspicuous  for  her  talents,  her  conversation,  her 
energy,  her  charms,  and  the  confidence  of  Bonaparte,  was  that  lady 
whom  I  have  just  mentioned  ! 


PKRIOI)  I.  11 

power  which  the  military  part  possessed ;  they  had 
rendered  the  nation  jealous  of  the  army ;  they  had  dis- 
persed and  dispirited  the  army  itself;  they  had  shown 
France  that  she  could  only  obtain  a  change  by  a  war 
with  Europe,  and  that  for  such  a  war  she  was  too 
weak ;  and  more  than  all  this,  they  had  furnished  a 
comparison  between  "  the  additional  act"  of  the  em- 
pire, and  "  the  constitutional  charta"  of  the  restoration. 

If  Bonaparte,  by  his  defeat  on  the  field  of  battle, 
attached  to  his  name  some  melancholy  and  affectionate 
remembrances,  the  recollections  which  Louis  XVIII. 
had  left  in  the  legislative  assembly  ;  the  calm  courage 
and  the  noble  dignity  with  which,  in  the  presence  of 
his  military  rival,  he  had  held  the  charta  as  a  buckler 
before  the  throne,  were  favourable  to  his  person,  and 
threw  a  constitutional  halo  round  the  renewal  of  his 
reign.* 

The  remonstrances  of  foreign  diplomacy,  the  mani- 
fest faults  which  the  royalists  had  themselves  com- 
mitted, the  bitter  lesson  that  Bonaparte  brought  with 
him  from  Elba,  the  certainty  that  the  nation  was  neu- 
tral and  the  army  hostile — the  good  sense  of  Louis 
XVIII.  himself,  who  saw  that  his  policy  must  be  to 
unite  under  the  wing  of  the  monarchy  the  different 
factions  into  which  an  attachment  to  the  old  "  regime," 
a  prominent  part  in  the  revolution,  or  a  situation  under 
the  empire,  had  split  his  agitated  and  divided  people — 
procured  for  a  moment  the  appearance  of  moderation, 
which  the  dismissal  of  the  Due  de  Blacas,  and  the  ap- 


*  It  was  before  quitting  Paris  that  Louis  XVIH.,  who  had,  from 
the  first  landing  of  Napoleon,  shown  calmness,  firmness,  and  dignity, 
made  the  attempt  to  excite  a  constitutional  enthusiasm  by  appearing 
to  the  chambers,  and  delivering  one  of  those  remarkable  discourses 
which  no  one  better  knew  how  to  utter  or  compose.  "  Celui  qui 
vient  allumer  parmi  nous  les  torches  de  la  guerre  civile  y  apporte 
aussi  la  fleau  de  la  guerre  etrangere,  il  vient  remettre  notre  patrie 
sous  son  joug  de  fer,  il  vient  entin  detruire  cette  charte  constitu- 
tionnelle  que  je  vous  ai  donnee,  cette  charte,  mon  plus  beau  titre  aux 
yeux  de  la  posterite,  cette  charte,  que  tons  les  Fran^ais  cherissent, 
et  que  je  jure  ici  de  maintenir." — "  We'll  die  for  the  king,"  shouted 
the  people ;  but  "  liberty"  was  not  at  that  time  a  habit,  and  Bonaparte 
marched  to  Paris  at  the  head  of  his  troops. 


12  UESTOIIATION. 

pointment  of  Fouche,  a  regicide,  and  Guizot,  a  Pro- 
testant, to  office,  seemed  to  guaranty.  But  how  often 
is  it  deemed  impossible  to  adopt  a  general  system  of 
conciliation  without  a  partial  display  of  force.  The 
party  who  clamour  for  punishment  must  be  appeased, 
while  there  is  something  fatally  flattering  to  human 
vanity  in  the  demonstration  that  if  we  choose  to  he 
generous  we  dare  to  be  severe.  Hence  those  fatal  exe- 
cutions and  proscriptions  which  overshadowed  the 
great  name  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  revived  the 
worst  memories  of  the  French  republic.  Hence  the 
exile  of  Carnot,  the  assassination  of  Labedoy^re,* 
while  Nismes,  Toulouse,  and  Marseilles  were  dis- 
graced by  the  madness  of  an  infuriated  populace,!  and 
the  blood  of  Marshal  Brune  at  Avignon  disgraced  the 
c^use  of  royalty  and  religion. 

It  was  now  that  a  new  class  of  persons,  attached  to 
the  Bourbons  at  the  commencement  of  their  reign,  be- 
gan to  wish  and  to  conspire  for  their  overthrow.  The 
republicans  and  the  more  liberal  part  of  the  constitu- 
tionalists had  welcomed  the  restoration  from  their 
hatred  of  Bonaparte  :  and  though  the  senate  felt  that 
the  octroyization  of  the  charta  was  an  attack  in  point 
of  form  upon  the  privileges  of  the  nation,  still  it  felt 
also  that  that  charta  did  in  fact  assure  those  privileges. 
We  find  then  that  Barras,  previous  to  the  hundred 
days,  warned  the  Due  de  Blacas  of  the  catastrophe 
that  was  preparing,  and  that  Manuel  and  Lafayette, 
after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  paralyzed  all  Napoleon's 
further  plans  of  resistance.  Had  it  not  been  for  this — 
had  the  liberal  and  the  military  part  of  France  been  at 
that  time  united,  a  battle  would  have  been  fought  under 
the  walls  of  Paris,  and  the  army  of  the  Loire  might 
have  been  still  formidable  to  the  invaders. 

The   persecutions   of  Louis    XVIIL  effected   that 

*  Labedoyfere  was  not  actually  brought  to  trial  until  the  ministry 
of  Richelieu. 

t  It  is  but  justice  to  observe,  that  the  state  of  the  Protestants  in  the 
South  excited  the  attention  of  the  British  and  Prussian  governments, 
who  insisted  on  the  repression  of  these  disorders. 


rEuiOD  I.  13 

which  the  misfortunes  of  Bonaparte  had  not  been  able 
to  produce  ;  they  united  against  the  restoration  the 
opponent  parts  of  the  empire,  i.  e.  the  heroes  who  had 
formed  its  glory,  the  patriots  who  had  objected  to  its 
principles.     But  how  far  was  Louis  XVIII.  to  blame  ? 

Every  day  made  his  difficulties  more  apparent :  the 
government  of  Monsieur  de  Talleyrand,  notwithstand- 
ing the  cruel  compliances  which  alienated  one  party, 
found  it  impossible  to  resist  the  wrath  which  its  mere 
reputation  for  liberality  excited  in  another. 

Fouche  published  his  celebrated  memorials*  among 
the  most  important  political  documents  that  ever  ap- 
peared ;  and  finally,  the  Prince  of  Benevento  found 
himself  obliged  to  tender  his  resignation. 

The  mass  of  the  imperial  army,  the  more  violent 
of  the  imperial  opposition,  were  now  hostile  to  the 
Bourbon  "  regime  ;"  a  conflict  commenced  between 
the  more  moderate  and  the  more  bigoted  royalists,  as 
to  wlio  should  administer  its  affairs.  At  the  head  of 
these  parties  were  the  monarch  now  in  exile — the 
monarch  then  upon  the  throne. 

There  had  been  between  these  two  princes  a  kind 
of  jealous  rivalry  from  their  very  boyhood.  Celebrated 
for  his  grace,  his  intrigues,  the  flower  of  the  fashion- 
able nobility  of  Versailles,  the  Comte  d'Artois  had 
early  in  his  favour  all  the  more  brilliant  part  of  the 
court^of  Marie  Antoinette.  The  women  extolled  him, 
the  young  men  imitated  him,  and  applauded  the  frank- 
ness of  his  follies,  in  opposition  to  the  more  reserved 
carriage  and  the  more  serious  pursuits  of  the  Comte 
de  Provence.  Moreover,  the  aristocracy  of  the  emi- 
gration, instituting  a  kind  of  periodical  hierarchy 
among  themselves,  placed  the  persons  who  departed 
after  the  first  triumph  of  the  revolution  in  a  much 
higher  rank  th^n  thosie  who  subsequently  retired.f 

The  Comte  d'Artois  then,  opposed  to  any  popular 
compliances,  was  decidedly  the  royalist  chief.     Proud 


*  See  Appendix. 

t  Louis  XVIIf.  frequently  complained  in  private  of  this  distinction. 
2 


14  RESTORATION. 

of  his  situation,  vain  of  his  authority,  irritated  by  a 
restless  desire  for  contention  and  intrigue,  this  prince, 
the  presumptive  heir  to  the  crown,  already  disputed 
the  administration  of  affairs;'*  and  constituting  a  cabi- 
net of  his  own,  aspired  to  impose  upon  the  royal  coun- 
cils the  resolutions  of  the  "  Pavilion  Marsan."t  Louis 
XVI II.  was  of  a  temporizing  disposition ;  the  same 
feelings  which  made  him  favourable  to  a  moderate  line 
of  policy,  made  him  hostile  to  an  open  quarrel  with 
those  who  urged  a  violent  one.  Besides,  he  was  not 
altogether  beyond  the  influences  of  his  youth,  and  felt 
a  respect  that  was  involuntary  for  that  man  in  his 
family  who  was  most  fashionable  with  his  court. 

The  first  and  second  administrations  of  the  Due  de 
Richelieu  were  administrations  of  compromise  between 
the  two  brothers  and  the  two  parties.  But,  named 
twice  under  the  auspices  of  the  Comte  d'Artois,  the 
Due  de  Richelieu  was  each  time  eventually  honoured 
by  his  disapprobation  : — first,  when  he  would  not  pass 
a  universal  sentence  of  proscription  upon  all  that 
prince's  enemies  ;  secondly,  when  he  would  not  give 
all  the  places  at  his  disposal  to  that  prince's  friends.J 

The  governments  of  DessoUe  and  Decazes — which 
may  both  be  considered  as  formed  under  the  influence 
and  representing  the  opinions  of  Monsieur  Decazes — 
though  under  different  circumstances  and  in  different 
degrees — the  governments  of  Messrs.  Dessolle  and 
Decazes,  intervening  between  the  two  administration?; 
of  Monsieur  de  Richelieu,  represented  the  ideas  of 
the  king,  of  the  more  moderate  royalists,  and  stood  at 
once  uncompromisingly  opposed  to  the  w^hole  power 
of  the  "  Pavilion  Marsan." 


*  He  had  already  assumed,  in  1 814,  the  title  of  heutenant-general, 
without  authority,  to  the  great  dissatisfaction  of  the  king. 

t  Tliat  part  of  the  Tuileries  where  the  Comte  d'Artois  resided. 

X  It  was  for  this  reason  that  this  administration  was  opposed ;  and 
the  Due  de  Richelieu's  illness  and  death  were  mainly  to  be  attrib- 
uted, it  is  said,  to  the  disgust  and  vexation  which  he  felt  at  the 
Comte  d'Artois' attack  upon  his  government — a  government  which  he 
^the  Due  de  Richelieu)  had  only  undertaken  under  the  express  prom- 
ise of  monsieur's  support  and  assistance. 


PEKlOr)    1.  15 

This  is  the  interesting  and  critic  \1  period  of  the  reis^. 
toration.  In  the  contest  at  issue  were  engaged  the 
destinies  of  the  monarchy  and  the  two  policies  whictx 
the  restoration  had  to  follow.  It  was  impossible  for 
the  moderate  party  to  be  more  fortunate  than  it  was  in 
its  chief.  Monsieur  Decazes,  now  placed  in  so 
prominent  a  position,  had  in  early  life  been  secretary 
to  Madame  Bonaparte  ;  he  was  subsequently  known 
as  a  distinguished  magistrate,*  and — remarkable  du- 
ring the  hundred  days  for  the  zeal  and  ability  which 
he  displayed  in  favour  of  the  Bourbons — had  been 
named  "  Prefet  de  Police"  under  Foiiche,  at  their  re- 
turn. Favoured  by  accident  with  an  interview  with 
Louis  XVIII.,  the  monarch,  pleased  by  his  address, 
struck  by  his  capacity,  and  anxious  to  be  independent 
of  the  political  probity  of  the  Due  d'Otrante,  desired 
the  "  prefet"  to  submit  his  reports  directly  to  himself,! 
and  expressed  a  wish  to  improve  the  acquaintance. 

This  was  the  commencement  of  M.  Decazes'  fa- 
vour. At  the  time  I  am  speaking  of,  that  favour  was 
at  its  height.  Monsieur  Decazes  then  was  the  inti- 
mate friend  (such  was  the  appellation  which  Louis 
XVIII.  gave  him)  of  the  sovereign :  he  had  great 
■^pularity  in  the  country,  many  friends  in  the  cham- 
^^r.  To  these  advantages  he  joined  habits  of  official 
'msiness,  an  easy  and  conciliating  eloquence,  and  the 
^ality,  so  important  in  a  difficult  ministerial  situation, 
of  soothing  the  irritation  and  satisfying  the  "  amour 
propre"  of  a  doubtful  and  displeased  adherent.  The 
minister  had  a  graceful  manner,  an  imposing  person — 
a  countenance  noble,  handsome,  and  agreeable — great 
tact,  considerable  lalent — and  very  wise  and  large 
views  in  favour  of  'he  industry  and  the  intelligence 
of  the  country.     Atta:;hed  to  no  party,  he  professed 

*  De  la  cour  d'assises  du  d^partement  de  la  Seii.e. 

f  Louis  XVIII.,  in  common  with  all  the  Bourbon  family,  had  a 
great  pleasure  in  the  pohtical  gossip  with  which  it  is  easy  for  a 
minister,  who  has  the  police  at  his  disposal,  to  decorate  his  reports ; 
and  here  M.  Decazes  had  an  opportunity  which  few  in  his  situation 
would  have  neglected,  of  improving  any  favourable  impression  he 
might  first  have  made. 


16  RESTORATION. 

to  Stand  upon  the  general  ground  of  moderate  men 
and  moderate  opinions.  He  wished  to  make  the  king 
— "  not  as  Henry  HI.  the  chief  of  the  Leaguers,  but 
as  Henry  IV.  the  father  of  his  people."  This  was 
the  idea,  as  this  was  the  comparison  which  above  all 
others  pleased  Louis  XVIIL 

Shortly  after  the  dissolution  of  1815,  he  himself  had 
said  to  M.  Ravez,  "  Trop  d'agitations  ont  malheureuse- 
ment  trouble  la  France  :  elle  a  besoin  de  repos,  il  lui 
faut  pour  en  jouir  des  deputes  attaches  ^  ma  personne, 
a  la  legitimite,  et  a  la  Charte,  mais  surtout  moderes  et 
prudens.^^  To  another  person  his  language  had  been 
the  same. 

"  Les  sages  amis  de  la  legitimite  et  de  la  charte," 
he  had  said,  "  veulent  avec  moi  et  comme  moi  le  bon- 
heur  de  la  France — ils  sont  convaincus  que  ce  bonheur 
est  dans  le  repos,  et  que  le  repos  ne  peut  naitre  que 
de  la  moderation." 

These  were  the  views  of  the  king :  these  were  the 
views  of  his  minister.  From  September  5th,  up  to 
the  retirement  of  M.  de  Richelieu,  and  the  nomination 
of  M.  Dessolle,  there  had  been  a  continued  series  of 
mild  but  popular  concessions.  The  formation  of  the 
army,  the  election  of  the  chamber,  had  undergone  two 
great  and  liberal  alterations ;  the  press,  though  still 
fettered,  was  more  free — and  France,  beginning  to 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  internal  liberty,  had  delivered 
herself  on  better  terms  than  she  might  have  expected 
from  foreign  occupation. 

The  ministry  of  M.  Dessolle  had  been  formed  on 
the  determination  to  maintain  the  new  law  of  election. 
This  law  contained  no  violent  scheme  of  popular 
government,  for  it  gave  but  eighty  thousand  electors 
to  a  people  of  twenty-seven  millions,  but  it  had  almost 
completely  excluded  the  "  extreme  droite"  (the  more 
bigoted  royalists),  and  brought  Gregoire  and  Manuel 
into  the  chamber.  A  little  more  parliamentary  expe- 
rience would  have  taught  the  monarch  that  he  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  two  or  three  obnoxious  elections, 
and  that  on  the  contrary  a  government  gains  by  meet- 


PERIOD    I.  17 

iiig  chiefs  of  a  hostile  party  front  to  front  in  a  place 
of  public  discussion.  The  nomination,  however,  of 
the  ex-bishop  of  Blois,*  the  mitred  regicide,  threw 
even  Louis  XVIII.  into  consternation.  Already  he 
had  supported  his  ministers  by  a  creation  of  peers, 
and  in  a  letter,  the  copy  of  which  I  have  been  shown, 
denounced  the  fatal  effects  of  an  unforgivijig  policy  ;t 
but  the  republican  elections  startled  him  :  the  consti- 
tution of  the  chamber  had  been  changed  in  order  to 
restrain  the  violence  of  the  ultra-royalist  faction ;  he 
trembled  lest  he  should  be  thrown  into  the  violence 
of  a  faction  still  more  to  be  dreaded.  The  system  he 
sought  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  system  of  moderation, 
but  placed  under  the  necessity  of  a  choice,  he  would 
have  preferred  the  "  coterie"  of  the  Comte  d'Artois  to 
the  "  coterie"  of  M.  Lafitte. 

The  chamber  at  this  time  was  split  int®  different 
divisions.  There  was  the  right,  at  the  head  of  which 
were  Messrs.  Corbieres,  Villele,  and  Labourdonnaye. 
The  left,  at  the  head  of  which  were  Manuel,  Dupont 
de  I'Eure,  Lafayette,  Lafitte,  and  Ternaux.  Each  of 
these  sections  had  two  parties,  the  more  moderate  of 
which  adhered  to  M.  de  Villele  on  the  one  side — to 
Monsieur  Ternaux  on  the  other.  The  government 
was  supported  by  the  left  centre,  the  "  Doctrinaires," 
a  title  then  coming  into  notice,  and  a  portion  of  the 
right  centre — which  it  gradually  lost  as  it  tended  to- 
wards more  liberal  measures,  and  might  hope  to  re- 
gain if  it  remeasured  its  steps. 

No  ministry  can  long  stand  completely  balanced  be- 
tween two  parties ;  it  must  have  some  tendency.  The 
tendency  of  the  French  ministry  had  hitherto  been  lib- 

*  Gregoire. 

t  To  any  person  at  all  acquainted  with  the  correspondence  of 
Louis  XVIIl.  it  would  be  useless  to  speak  of  the  peculiar  pains 
which  he  took  with  all  the  letters  and  billets,  the  wnting  of  which 
was  one  of  his  principal  amusements  and  occupations;  penned  in  a 
very  small  neat  hand,  in  very  pure  and  studied  phraseology,  these 
little  documents  contained  a  great  deal  of  good  sense  and  dignity 
when  their  subject  was  serious,  a  great  deal  of  grace  and  gallantry 
when  it  was  not. 

2* 


18  RESTORATION. 

eral,  and  it  had  gradually  been  verging  towards  the 
left :  but  there  was  a  party  towards  the  left  with  whom 
it  could  not  venture  to  make  terms,  and  there  was  a 
party  towards  the  right  which  still  clung  to  it,  and 
which  had  considerable  influence  in  the  other  chamber. 
I  have  said  that  there  was  a  party  hostile  to  the 
Bourbons  in  the  chamber,  but  that  party  was  still  small. 
Benjamin  Constant — Foy — the  wisest,  the  ablest,  the 
most  popular,  and  the  most  eloquent  of  the  cote  gauche^ 
were  all  attached  to  a  constitutional  monarchy  and  an 
hereditary  succession.  That  party  (and  with  that 
party  the  press)  offered  their  imdivided— their  zealous 
and  active  support  to  M.  Decazes,  if  he  would  main- 
tain untouched  the  existing  law  of  election.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  droite  of  the  chamber,  the  court,  and 
iiiialiy  the  king,  were  for  its  modification.  In  an  evil 
hour  for  legitimacy,  M.  Decazes  abandoned  the  oppor- 
tunity by  which  he  might  for  ever  have  crushed  the 
two  parties — here  struggling  against  the  dynasty,  there 
against  the  nation.  With  Benjamin  Constant,  Foy, 
Ternaux,  and  he  would  at  that  time  have  had  Lafitte, 
added  to  the  whole  force  of  the  Doctrinaires^  and  his 
own  personal  party  on  the  centre  gauche,  M.  Decazes, 
strong  in  his  own  ability,  strengthened  by  the  popular 
voice,  would  have  been  able  to  wield  the  whole  force 
of  the  country  and  of  the  monarchy,  aiid  to  have  smit- 
ten down  his  enemies  on  either  side.  Attached  to  the 
king,  exposed  to  the  remonstrances  of  the  Carlsbad 
confederacy,  irritated,  perchance,  by  some  injudicious 
liberal  attacks,  he  resolved,  I  repeat,  in  an  evil  hour,  to 
retrace  his  steps.  It  is  fair  to  acknowledge,  however, 
that  he  did  not  do  this  in  the  ungenerous  spirit  of  a 
renegade  :  moderate  in  his  advance,  he  was  moderate 
in  his  retreat.  Left  by  M.  Dessolle,  he  had  to  form  a 
new  government,  and  he  composed  it  of  men  of  high 
character,  of  superior  abilities,  and  of  principles  as 
temperate  as  he  could  adopt  for  the  course  he  had  de- 
termined to  pursue  : — by  this  he  hoped  to  reconquer 
the  favour  of  the  court,  and  to  preserve  the  support  of 


PERIOD    I.  19 

the  Constitutionalists.  This  he  hoped — and  what  in 
reality  took  place  ?  He  offended  the  one  party  as  much 
as  if  he  had  pleased  the  other. 

The  waves  of  opinion  ran  too  high  for  such  a  sys- 
tem of  peace,  and  dashed  on  either  side  over  a  ministry 
which,  at  once  assailed  by  two  oppositions,  had  to  repel 
the  double  attack  of  Labourdonnaye  and  Lafayette. 
Stigmatized  as  the  timid  deserter  of  their  cause  by  the 
Liberals,  still  regarded  as  their  disguised  and  humbled 
enemy  by  the  Royalists,  both  parties  threw  in  the  face 
of  his  present  policy  his  past  professions.*  An  event 
was  only  wanting  to  overturn  the  government,  which 
no  person  ardently  supported.  A  terrible  event  came  ; 
the  only  popular  prince  of  the  Bourbon  family  was 
stabbed  by  the  knife  of  Louvel.  The  blow  fell  like  a 
thunderbolt  upon  the  ministry  :  it  annihilated — it  beat 
it  to  atoms.  Nobly  defended  by  the  party  he  had  left, 
infamously  aspersed  by  the  party  he  had  approached, 
M.  Decazes  resigned — nor  could  he  have  stood  an 
hour.  He  had  no  longer  the  nation  at  his  back ;  the 
Comte  d'Artois  and  the  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  insisted 
on  his  dismissal ;  the  court  even  clamoured  for  his  im- 
peachment ;  and  M.  de  Chateaubriand,  with  one  of  his 
great  charlatanisms  of  expression,  declared  "  That  the 
foot  of  M.  Decazes  had  slipped  in  the  blood  of  the  Due 
de  Berri.^^ 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  events  of  this 
time,  not  only  because  it  is  the  critical  time  of  the 
restoration,  but  because  it  is  a  time  which  all  states- 
men, now  living,  acting,  and  thinking,  would  do  well 

to  study ! 

#  *  *  * 

With  the  fall  of  Monsieur  Decazes  fell  the  courage 
of  Louis  XVIII.,  who,  first  glad  to  interpose  Monsieur 

*  It  is  impossible,  in  recurring  to  this  part  of  French  history,  not 
to  apply  it  to  what  is  taking  place  in  England  and  in  our  own  times, 
ay,  even  at  the  moment  at  which  I  am  writing,  when  a  cabinet  is  yet 
to  be  formed.  Whatever  result  from  the  late  resignations,  let  me 
express  an  earnest  hope  that  the  policy  so  fatal  to  the  dynasty  of 
France  may  find  no  imitators  here.  , 

July  11, 1834. 


20  RESTORATION. 

de  Richelieu  between  the  two  systems,  finally  resigned 
himself  to  the  dictation  of  his  brother,  and  the  govern- 
ment of  Monsieur  de  Villele  ;  while  the  hearts  of  many 
grew  dead  to  the  hope  of  reconciling  the  existing  race 
with  free  institutions ,  and  vast  numbers  went  over  to 
swell  the  ranks  of  the  faction,  already  hostile  to  the 
legitimate  throne. 

From  the  ordonnance  of  September  to  the  death  of 
the  Due  de  Berri,  is  the  great  epoch  of  the  restora- 
tion ;  and  to  Monsieur  Decazes  more  especially  is 
owing  the  impulse  given  at  this  time  to  the  industry  of 
France,  and  which  since  this  time  has  carried  on  the 
nation  with  giant  steps  in  a  new  career.  Then  was  in- 
stituted a  board  for  the  amelioration  of  agriculture ; 
then  was  formed  a  council  for  the  inspection  and  im- 
provement of  prisons  ;  then  was  shown  the  most  earnest 
solicitude  for  elementary  and  popular  education  ;  then 
were  manufactures  encouraged  by  a  national  exposi- 
tion, at  which  the  artisan  met  the  monarch,  and  re- 
ceived the  prize  which  society  owed  him,  from  the 
royal  hand.*  This  period  was  a  period  ot  improvement 
— a  period  of  impartiality,  a  period  at  which  the  nation 
made  an  immeasurable  advance — at  which  the  desti- 
nies of  the  throne  were  yet  undecided.  To  M.  Decazes 
the  people  owed  in  some  degree  the  revolution ;  he 
developed  the  people's  energies — to  M.  Decazes  the 
monarchy  might  have  owed  its  security — he  would 
have  united  the  monarchy  with  the  nation. 

The  Due  de  Berri  was  assassinated  the  13th  of 
February,  1820,  and  in  the  September  following  was 
born  the  Due  de  Bourdeaux,  heir  to  a  throne,  which 
was  at  the  same  time  assailed  by  an  adverse  supersti- 
tion of  hatred  and  devotion.  On  all  sides — violence  : 
here  the  ill-concerted  plans  of  republicans  put  down, 
there  the  unhappy  schemes  of  royalists  successful :  in 
Europe,  the  same  struggle  between  abstract  doctrines 
and  arbitrary  rule. 

The  war  against  Spain  displayed  the  principles  of 

*  A  table  of  this  exposition  is  to  be  found  in  the  vol.  of  M.Chabrol, 
to  which  I  have  alluded  in  my  appendix. 


P£RIOD   I.  21 

the'  French  Government  abroad ;  the  Septennial  Act 
asserted  them  at  home — while  the  press  crawled  fee- 
bly on,  under  the  weight  of  the  censorship,  and  through 
the  trammels  of  corruption.  .  .  .  Such  was  the  state 
of  things  when  Louis  XVIII.  died.* 

His  brother  passed  from  the  chamber  of  death ;  the 
royal  doors  unfolded  to  the  new  king — 

"  Le  Roi,  Messieurs,''^  said  M.  de  Blacas,  according 
to  ancient  usage,  and  Charles  the  Tenth  received  the 
homage  of  the  princes  and  great  officers  of  the  crown. 

*  The  following  words  are  given  to  Louis  XVIII.  just  previous  t(/ 
his  death,  and  seem,  from  what  I  can  learn,  to  have  been,  with  some 
verbal  inaccuracies,  really  addressed  to  his  brother. 

"  I  have  dealt  with  all  parties  as  did  Henry  IV.,  and,  more  fortunate 
than  Henry  IV.,  I  die  in  my  bed.  Do  you  do  as  I  have  done,  and 
you  will  die  as  I  die.  I  forgive  you  all  the  pain  you  have  caused 
me  :"  and  subsequently,  when  the  Due  de  Bourdeaux  was  presented 
to  him, — "Let  Charles  X.  have  a  care  for  that  child's  crown?" 
— Hist,  de  la  Restoration. 

I  believe  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  I  have  seen  in  different 
parts  of  his  private  correspondence,  very  extraordinary  proofs  of 
Louis's  great  sagacii/,  of  the  fears  he  entertained  for  the  projects, o^c 
the  Comte  d'Artois,  and  of  his  sense  of  the  danger  to  which  those 
projects  would  expose  the  throne  of  his  neohew. 
20 


22  RESTORATION. 


RESTORATION. 


PERIOD  II. 

Chailes  X.  popular,  though  the  Oomte  d'Artois  so  unpopular — The 
French  ii ailed  a  King  who  could  ride  on  horseback— The  abolition 
of  the  ceisorship — ReaGtion  against  the  King — The  Jesuits — M.  de 
Vill^le  carries  the  powers  of  the  Constitution  to  the  extremest  verge 
— The  system  which  he  essayed  left  in  its  failure  no  resource — 
The  char-.cter  of  M.  de  Villele — Ministry  of  Martignac — Steps  to- 
wards lib  rty^Why  unsuccessful — The  march  taken  by  the  nation 
during  the  Ministry  of  Villele— Opinions  of  M.  Martignac — Ideas 
of  (.^harles  X. — Difficulties  of  situation  and  causes — Advantage  of 
popularnames  to  avert  too  sudden  popular  concessions — Reasons 
why  this  advantage  should  exist — Danger  of  choosing  unpopular 
names — Example  in  M.  Polignac — Feelings  in  the  country — 
Course  of  the  King— Ordonnances  consistent  with  Charles  X.'s 
character — Considerations — Great  difficulty  of  preserving  the  in- 
stilutious  of  1814,  and  the  principle  on  which  they  were  given — 
The  three  mean-way  systems  failed — Not  once  was  the  Chamber 
"  liberal,",  but  that  it  passed  to  doctrines  hostile  to  the  sacred  pre- 
rogatives "of  the  Crown;  not  once  was  the  Chamber  "  royalist," 
but  that  \t  insisted  on  a  policy  inimical  to  the  accorded  liberties  of 
ihe  people — Weakness  never  so  fatal  to  its  possessor  as  when 
accompanied  by  violence — An  absolute  theory  worst  enemy  of  a 
constitutional  throne. 

Strange  to  say,  never  was  king  at  the  commence- 
ment of  his  reign  more  popular  than  the  unpopular  heir 
to  the  throne.*  With  the  happy  levity  of  their  char- 
acter, i\iJS)  French  forgot  the  religious  prejudices,  the 
consti:  •tional  repugnances  of  the   Comte  d'Artois  on 

*  Ofijpn,  and  even  lately,  I  have  heard  people,  looking  back  to  this 
time,  speak  of  the  change  that  took  place,  the  kind  of  religious  en- 
thusiasii;;  that  was  suddenly  kindled  in  favour  of  Charles  X.,  as  one 
of  the  most  I'markable  political  phenomena  of  their  changeful  day; 
and  when  one  'considers  Charles  the  Tenth's  known  opinions,  known 
personal  attachments,  it  does  appear  far  more  astonishing  that  his 
manners  should,  even  for  a  moment,  have  deceived  his  people,  than 
that  their  confidence  shwild  have  so  fatally  and  so  decidedly  deceived 
himself. 


PERIOD    II.  23 

the  accession  of  Charles  X.  Change  itself  was  no 
inconsiderable  blessing  to  such  a  people  ;  and  wearied 
with  a  decrepit  monarch,  swathed  in  flannel,  they  de- 
lighted themselves  in  the  possession  of  a  king  who 
enjoyed  the  pre-eminent  advantage  of  bearing  himself 
gallantly  on  horseback.  Charles  X.  courted  popular- 
ity, and  had  in  his  favour  all  the  external  circum- 
stances which  procure  it.  Courteous,  dignified,  with  a 
peculiarly  royal  air,  and  a  singular  grace  of  expres- 
sion, his  manner  and  his  conversation  were  far  supe- 
rior to  himself,  though  it  is  very  erroneous,  notwith- 
standing all  his  errors,  to  suppose  that  he  did  not  pos- 
sess a  certain  ability. 

I  remember  being  in  Paris  about  this  time. — It  is 
impossible  to  describe  the  enthusiasm  which  pervaded 
it  when  the  abolition  of  the  censorship  wc  jnd  up  to 
the  highest  pitch  the  popular  excitement.*  But  this 
enthusiasm,  wide  as  it  spread,  was  neither  calculated 
to  last  long,  nor  did  it  penetrate  deep  :  it  was  upon  the 
surface  of  the  nation. 

Those  who  had  approached  the  king  in  the  trans- 
action of  affairs,  knew  the  prejudices  which  guided 
him,  and  the  incompatibility  which  must  exist  between 
his  future  government  and  his  momentary  popularity. 
Those  into  whom  the  last  reign  had  inspired  a  deep 
and  almost  desperate  dissatisfaction,  paused,  it  is  true, 
for  a  moment  in  their  thoughts  and  plans — would  have 

*  Charles  the  Tenth  owed  the  greater  part  of  his  short-lived  popu- 
larity to  a  certain  grace  of  language  and  a  certain  chivalry  of  manner, 
of  which  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  but  a  Frenchman  to  understand  the 
value.  The  removal  of  the  censorship,  however,  was  a  new  title  to 
applause,  and  seems  at  first  sight  to  militate  against  what  has  pre- 
viously been  said  of  the  views  and  policy  of  this  prince.  B'  -  it  is  a 
smgular  fact  that  the  extreme  Royalists  were  always  favoi  able  to 
the  liberty  of  the  press— partly  because  they  had  been  m  opy^osition 
when  the  government  of  Louis  XVIII,  had  proposed  to  control  that 
liberty,  partly  because  they  really  and  sincerely  believed  that,  in  spite 
of  the  republic  and  the  empire,  the  antique  adoration  fo  royalty  still 
lingered  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  that  it  only  required  to  be  frankly 
and  loyally  appealed  to.  Charles  X.  then,  fond  of  scenes,  fond  of 
popular  applause — as  what  monarch,  dreaming  despotism,  is  not  ? — 
seized  with  dehght  an  opportunity  which,  as  he  thought,  would  ulti- 
mately extend  his  power,  and  which  at  all  events  rendered  him  for 
three  days  the  idol  of  Paris 


24  RESTORATION.  ' 

been  willing  to  pardon,  at  the  price  of  almost  impos- 
sible concessions — but  first  doubting,  finally  disap- 
pointed, they  added  to  the  list  of  their  wrongs  the 
vainness  of  those  hopes  that  had  been  excited,  and 
with  a  more  dark  and  determined  spirit  pursued  their 
reveries  of  revenge. 

In  vain  did  the  new  monarch,  with  a  noble  policy 
that  did  honour  to  his  advisers,  attempt  to  unite  all  the 
feelings,  and  all  the  generations,  old  and  young,  of  his 
people,  in  the  solemn  and  comprehensive  terms  of  his 
coronation  oath* — even  then,  brief  as  was  the  period 
that  had  elapsed,  his  opinions  were  recognised,  and 
his  popularity  was  on  the  decline. 

What  else  could  be  expected  ?  The  unfortunate 
Charles  X.,  with  the  swift  descent  of  a  misgiving  sin- 
ner, had  plunged  from  the  pinnacle  of  gay  debauch, 
where  he  had  signalized  his  early  days,  down  to  the 
very  depths  of  superstition.  Those  religious  men — 
the  civilized  benefactors  of  a  barbarous  age,  and  who 
then,  inverting  their  endeavours,  struggled  to  quench 
and  to  put  out  the  sacred  light  which  humanity  honours 
them  for  having  kindled — the  Jesuits — no  longer  the 
friends  of  intelligence,  the  propagators  and  professors 
of  the  liberal  and  learned  arts — the  Jesuits — as  far 
behind  the  time  in  which  they  were  living  as  they  had 
been  before  the  time  at  which  they  appeared — the 
Jesuits — not,  as  of  old,  remarkable  for  their  profound 
knowledge  and  vast  acquirements — but  retaining  merely 
their  dangerous  and   selfish   policy,   their   profligate 

*  Coronation  Oath. — "  En  presence  de  Dieu,  je  promets  a  mon 
peuple  de  mainienir  et  d'honorer  notre  sainte  religion,  comme  il  ap- 
partient  au  roi  tr^s-chr^tien  et  au  ills  aine  de  I'Eglise ;  de  rendre 
bonne  justice  a  tjits  mes  sujets ;  enfin,  de  gouverner  conformenient  avx 
lots  du  royaume  et  h  la  charte  constitutionnelle,  que  je  jure  d'observer 
fid^lement ;  qu'ainsi  Dieu  me  soit  en  aide,  et  ses  saints  Evangiles."  As 
chief  sovereign  and  grand  master  of  the  royal  and  military  order  of 
Saint  Louis,  and  of  the  royal  order  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  the 
king  said,  "  Nous  jurons  solennellement  a  Dieu  de  maintenir  a  ja- 
mais, sans  laisser  dechoir  leurs  glorieuses  prerogatives,  I'ordre  royal 
et  militaire  de  Saint-Louis  et  I'ordre  royale  et  militaire  de  la  Ldgion 
d'Honneur ;  de  porter  la  croix  de.s  dits  ordres,  et  d'en  faire  observer 
les  statuis.  Ainsi  ie  jurons  et  promettons  sur  la  sainte  Croix  et  sur 
les  saints  Evangiles."  The  order  of  Saint  Louis — the  order  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour ! — Here  were  ivio  epochs. 


PERIOD  II.  26 

and  treacherous  morality — were  marching  with  stealthy 
steps,  through  by-ways  and  secret  avenues,  towards 
the  most  important  offices  in  the  country,  and  hoping 
and  attempting  to  substitute  for  the  misfortune  of  infi- 
delity the  curse  of  superstition.  Already  had  this 
crafty  and  ambitious  sect  crept  near  the  cabinet  of  the 
king,  whispered  into  the  ear  of  the  minister,  insinu- 
ated itself  into  the  seminaries  of  education — the  affairs 
of  religion  became  the  daily  business  of  the  state  ; 
laws  were  brought  forward  which  punished  sacrilege 
as  parricide  ;  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  resembled  a 
council  of  Nice ;  and  the  Government  interfering — 
where  it  is  most  dangerous  to  interfere — with  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  Parisians — elongated  the  gowns  of  the 
actresses  and  the  opera  dancers,  and  peremptorily  de- 
cided how  many  inches  of  their  necks  and  their  ankles 
should  be  exposed. — Lo  !  through  the  streets  of  Paris, 
so  gay,  so  indolent,  so  prone  to  ridicule  and  irreligion, 
marches  the  long  procession,  chanting  the  "Miserere ;" 
and  the  Minister  of  War  delights  the  army  with  an 
assurance  that — that  regiment  is  excellent  at  prayers, 
and  this  regiment  incomparable  at  "paques."  While 
"the  Tartuffe"  recovers  its  originality,  and  is  given 
amid  shouts  of  applause,  as  if  it  were  a  new  piece 
written  for  the  period. 

And  now  amid  a  series  of  measures,  the  one  more 
unpopular  than  the  other,  the  monarchy  moves  steadily 
and  unhappily  on  to  its  destruction. 

The  indemnity  to  emigrants  weakens  the  security 
of  property — the  law  of  primogeniture  shocks  that 
equality* — at  once  the  darling  passion  and  the  ruling 

*  The  law  to  establish  a  system  of  primogeniture  was  thrown  out 
in  an  hereditary  Chamber  of  Peers. 

"  What,"  said  M.  Mol^,  whose  moderation  I  need  not  mention— 
"  What,"  said  M.  Mol^,  "  of  the  adoption  or  the  rejection  of  this  law  ? 
The  parties  interested  are  fathers,  elder  children,  younger  children, 
and  France.  Well !  will  the  fathers  receive  more  authority  ?  or  will 
they  not,  by  the  most  immoral  of  combinations,  be  condemned,  in 
some  degree,  to  disinherit  many  of  their  offspring?  And  die  eldest 
born ! — that  right  which  they  will  hold  from  the  law,  in  opposition  to 
Nature,  will  it  not  render  them  odious  and  hostile  to  their  brothers 
and  sisters?  And  the  younger  bom,  against  wliom  this  project  is 
directed  "*     In  wishing  to  make  an  aristocracy  with  the  elder  chil 


26  RESTORATION. 

principle  of  France — the  law  against  the  press,*  which, 
when  refused,  is  followed  by  an  ordonnance — the  dis- 
bandment  of  the  National  Guards — the  new  creation 
of  peers — carry  the  administration  in  every  way  to  the 
farthest  verge  of  constitutional  power.  Each  spring 
of  the  constitution,  stretched  to  the  utmost,  is  strained, 
and  its  power  injured. 

Mons.  de  Villele,  as  a  statesman,  was  guilty  of  that 
fault  which,  if  we  regard  its  consequences,  is  a  crime. 
The  system  which  he  essayed  left  in  its  failure  no 
legitimate  resource.  Moderation  after  violence  be- 
comes weakness  ;  and  when  violence  has  been  carried 
to  the  extremest  limit  of  the  law,  the  next  step  you 

will  you  not  make  a  formidable  democracy  with  theyou7iger  ones  1  And 
France— in  taking  from  the  circulation  one-fourth  of  her  property, 
will  you  not  diminish  her  landed  revenue,  and  will  she  not  be  me- 
naced by  new  impositions  ?" 

"  The  rigni  of  the  elder  born,"  said  another  peer,  "  is  intelhgible 
at  the  time  when  the  possession  of  fiefs  obhged  their  proprietors  to 
lead  their  vassals  to  battle.  But  every  thing  is  changed  ;  the  people 
to-day  pay  the  subsidies  and  concur  in  the  formation  of  the  army  ; 
'  nobles'  and  '  roturiers'  all  have  the  same  duty  to  perform.  No  one 
has  the  light  to  claim  peculiar  laws  or  peculiar  privileges  to  protect 
his  property,  and  watch  especially  over  its  conservation.  The  trans- 
mission of  fortune  from  a  father  to  his  cliildren,  without  distinction 
of  age  or  of  sex,  is  the  law  of  God  ;  and  man  has  only  the  right  to  inter- 
fere so  far  as  to  regulate  this  right,  and  to  conciliate  it  with  paternal 
authority  ?" 

Such  were  and  are  the  opinions  in  France. 

*  The  plan  of  the  govemment  was,  by  increasing  the  duty  on  the 
newspapers,  to  increase  their  price,  thereby  reducing  their  influence 
and  the  number  of  their  readers.  It  is  just  wortlx  remarking  that 
this  idea  was  taken  from  the  English  system,  and  recommended  to 
M.  de  VillMe  by  M.  Cottu. 

*'  A-t-on  jamais  vu  un  calcul  plus  errone,"  said  M.  Benj.  Constant, 
"  que  celui  qu'on  nous  presente  !  en  elevant  le  prix  des  journaux,  on 
ne  diminuera  point  leur  produit  annuel !  mais  le  plus  simple  bon  sens 
n'indique-t-il  pas  qxCen  doublant  le  port  on  diminuera  le  Jiombre  des 
eibonnds,  et  par  consequent  le  produit  de  la  taxe  ?  Maintenant  toute  la 
question  est  de  savoir  s'il  est  juste,  sage  et  politique  de  diminuer  la 
circulation  des  journaux  de  la  capitale,  et  de  tuer  i'existence  de  ceux 
des  departemens." 

"  Dans  tout  ceci,"  said  M.  de  Chateaubriand, "  n'y-a-t-il  pas  quelque 
chose  de  puetil  et  de  sauvage  qui  fait  veritablement  rougir  ?  Lu 
France  est-elle  done  redevenue  barbare  ?",... 

"  Dans  la  pensee  intime  de  la  loi,"  said  M.  Royer  CoUard,  "  ily  a 
eu  de  I'imprevoyance  au  grand  jour  de  la  creation  a  laisscr  rhommc 
^chapper  libre  et  intelligent  au  milieu  de  I'univers  !'' 

'I'he  Academy  protested  ;  the  law  was  finally  withdrawn. 


Pi.RIGD  IF.  27 

make  justifies  resistance.  Mons.  de  Vill^le  was  a 
man  of  ability  ;  he  had  a  certain  administrative  talent, 
a  certain  parliamentary  tact ;  but  he  had  none  of  those 
loftier  and  more  noble  qualities,  which  lift  a  statesman 
to  that  height  from  which  he  can  survey  and  provide 
for  the  wants  of  an  epoch.  All  his  ideas  and  hopes 
were  within  the  hemisphere  of  detail  and  intrigue — to 
tickle  the  ear  of  the  king,  to  entrap  a  majority  of  the 
Chamber,  and  to  attend  to  the  official  duties  of  his  de- 
partment— all  this  M.  de  Villele  understood,  and  under- 
stood well :  but  to  see  the  course  necessary  to  the 
nation,  to  urge  the  king  to  that  course,  to  lead  the 
Chamber  to  it — such  a  part  was  beyond  the  reach  of 
his  capacity,  and  totally  out  of  the  range  of  his  ideas. 
Simple  in  his  habits  and  expressions,  regular  in  his 
office,  and  prodigal  in  places  and  dinners  to  his  adhe- 
rents, he  exercised  a  great  sway  over  the  minds  of 
those  deputies  who,  fresh  from  their  provinces,  sym- 
pathized with  his  manners,  enriched  themselves  by  his 
appointments,  and  felt  themselves  raised  in  considera- 
tion by  his  hospitality.  By  this  provincial  body  M.  de 
Villele  was  adored  :  but  all  the  better  men  of  his  time 
and  of  his  party  he  alternately  offended  and  disgusted. 
He  betrayed  Mons.  de  Richelieu,  neglected  Messrs.  de 
Lalot  and  Labourdonnaye,  dismissed  Mons.  Hyde  de 
Neuville,  insulted  Mons.  de  Chateaubriand: — obtain- 
ing a  certain  reputation  as  a  statesman,  there  is  not  a 
principle  that  he  laid  down,  or  a  conviction  that  he 
followed — the  whole  course  of  his  administration  was 
foreign  to  his  character,  and  in  opposition  to  the  policy 
he  would  more  willingly  have  pursued.  An  advocate 
of  peace,  he  engaged  in  the  war  with  Spain ;  in  no 
wise  given  to  bigotry  and  superstition,  he  became  the 
minister  of  the  "  congregation  ;"  essentially  of  a  cau- 
tious and  moderate  nature,  the  career  of  his  govern- 
ment ran  through  a  series  of  rash  and  violent  experi- 
ments. An  able  man,  he  was  the  very  reverse  of  a 
great  man.  In  short,  he  had  just  sufficient  talent  to 
keep  his  place  during  six  years^  and  to  render  the  dy* 
B2 


28  RESTORATION. 

nasty  impossible  for  more  than  three  years  after  his  re- 
signation* 

Such  was  Monsieur  de  Villele, 

To  a  ministry  which  Charles  X.  said  represented 
himself,  succeeded  a  ministry  which  represented  no- 
thing. 

One  is  startled  at  almost  every  page  in  the  modem 
history  of  France  to  see  the  little  political  faith  that 
bums  in  the  hearts  of  public  men.  M.  de  Martignac 
comes  into  office  because  M.  de  Villele  can  no  longer 
command  a  majority  in  the  Chamber.  All  that  M.  de 
Martignac  looks  to,  then,  is  to  get  the  majority  which 
M.  de  Villele  wants.  He  casts  his  eyes  to  this  side, 
he  casts  his  eyes  to  that  side,  in  search  of  recniits ; 
and  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  ministry  distinguished 
from  M.  de  Vill^le's  by  its  moderation,  began  by  an 
offer  to  the  party  which,  during  M.  de  Villele's  admin- 
istration, had  formed  the  ultra-royalist  opposition. 
M.  de  Labourdonnaye,  however,  was  not  to  be  ob- 
tained, except  on  higher  terms  than  M.  de  Martignac 
could  afford  to  give  him ;  and  the  government,  which 
began  by  a  proposition  to  the  extreme  right,  wheeled 
round  at  once  to  the  left  centre — and  now  its  march 
becomes  every  day  more  and  more  decided  towards 
the  left.  The  members  of  the  former  government, 
Chabrol  and  Frassinous,  who,  at  first  remaining,  formed 
a  kind  of  link  between  the  old  government  and  the 
new,  are  dismissed.  The  liberty  of  the  press  is  to  a 
certain  degree  accorded.  A  law  to  regulate  and  pre- 
serve the  purity  of  elections,  scandalously  violated  by 
M.  de  Villele,  is  brought  forward.  The  deficit  left  by 
that  minister  is  acknowledged.     But  all  these  recog- 


*  Mons.  de  VillMe  gave  himself  one  Chamber  by  a  creation  of  peers, 
and  hoped  with  the  usual  arts  of  go  vernment  to  strengthen  his  majority 
in  the  other  by  a  new  election  ;  but  the  feelings  against  the  "  congre- 
gation," and  against  the  arbitrary  succession  of  measures  which  had 
left  the  nation  without  defence,  from  the  double  power  of  absolutism 
and  superstition,  except  in  its  representatives,  excited  throughout  the 
country  such  a  feeUng  in  respect  to  the  election  of  those  deputies, 
that  the  minister  was  completely  baffled,  and  in  consequence — 
resigned. 


PERIOD    II.  29 

nitions  of  public  opinion  are  insufficient  to  satisfy  it. 
Why  is  this  ? 

When  a  system  of  concession  is  adopted,  because  a 
system  of  repression  is  found  unavailing — when  such  is 
the  case — when  a  government  conciliates  because  it 
cannot  coerce,  it  should  not  merely  yield  to  what  is  de- 
manded, it  should  go  beyond  what  is  expected;  the 
applause  which  it  thus  surprises  from  the  people  be- 
comes a  barrier  against  future  opposition  ;  it  obtains 
the  credit,  not  of  submitting  from  weakness,  but  of  act- 
ing from  opinion ;  it  environs  itself  with  the  double 
charm  of  power  and  popularity,  and  by  appearing  to 
to  do  more  than  concede,  it  acquires  strength  to  resist. 

And  now  one  word  as  to  the  folly  of  an  intempestive 
course  of  repression.  In  what  direction  did  the  nation 
march  during  the  reign  of  M.  de  Villele  ?  Mark ! — 
Men  the  most  moderate — men  who,  like  M.  Ville- 
main,  had  formerly  supported — men  who,  like  M.  De- 
cazes,  had  formerly  proposed  the  censure — were  now 
far  in  advance,  not  of  the  administration  that  had  gone 
by,  not  of  the  administration  of  M.  de  Villele,  but  of 
the  liberal  administration  that  had  succeeded,  of  the 
administration  of  M.  de  Martignac  ;  nor  could  the  king 
or  his  administration  oppose  themselves  to  the  unani- 
mous cry  which  demanded  the  ordonnances  of  June 
against  the  Jesuits.* 

The  new  minister,  embarrassed  by  the  nation  on 
one  side,  by  the  court  and  a  strong  party  in  the  two 
houses  on  the  other  ;  alive  to  his  difficulties,  uncertain 
perhaps  in  his  course,  was  still  not  insensible  to  the 
feelings  that  were  abroad,  nor  to  the  only  career  which 
the  monarchy  had  to  run.  Prevented  by  the  circum- 
stances that  surrounded  him  from  being  more  liberal 
than  he  was,  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  peril  of  being 
less  so ;  and  one  of  the  most  remarkable  acts  of  his 

*  The  principal  part  of  these  ordonnances  was  that  which  declared 
that  no  person  thenceforward  could  remain  charged  with  any  office 
of  instruction  in  any  of  the  places  of  education  dependant  on  the 
university,  or  In  any  of  the  secondary  ecclesiastical  schools,  if  he  did 
not  affirm  in  writing  that  he  did  not  belong  to  any  religious  con- 
gregation not  legally  established"  in  France. 
3* 


30  RESTORATION. 

administration  was  the  "  me  moire"  presented  to  the 
king  in  1828,  and  conchiding  with  these  singularly- 
prophetic  words  : — 

"  Insensate  must  they  be  who  would  advise  your 
majesty  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Chamber.  The  electo- 
ral colleges  would  only  return  a  more  powerful  and 
compact  majority,  who  as  their  first  act  would  declare 
the  sovereignty  of  parliament.  Then  there  would  re- 
main to  your  majesty  but  one  of  these  two  alternatives  ; 
either  that  of  bowing  your  august  head  before  the 
Chamber,  or  of  recurring  to  the  unconstitutional  power 
for  ever  alienated  by  the  charta— a  power  which,  if 
evoked,  could  only  be  evoked  once  for  the  purpose  of 
plunging  France  into  new  revolutions,  amid  which 
would  disappear  the  crown  of  St.  Louis." 

Every  thing  which  occurred  in  the  two  administra- 
tions that  succeeded  M.  de  Villele's  is  to  be  accounted 
for  by  the  condition  in  which,  as  I  have  stated,  that 
minister  left  the  crown.  Legal  severity  had  then  been 
tried  to  the  utmost ;  a  feebleness  beneath  the  law,  or  a 
violence  beyond  it,*  were  the  two  alternatives  that  re- 
mained. The  ministry  of  M.  Martignac  represented 
the  one,  as  the  ministry  of  M.  de  Polignac  represented 
the  other.  The  king  and  the  people  alike  looked  upon 
the  Martignac  ministry  as  a  transition.  They  each 
saw  that  that  ministry  could  not  stand,  and  that  some- 
thing must  follow  which  would  decide  the  long  strug- 
gle of  sixteen  years,  either  by  destroying  the  charta, 
or  by  proclaiming  that  it  was  the  right  of  the  nation^ 
and  not  the  gift  of  the  king. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the  state  of  the  country 
and  of  parties  was  such,  that  there  could  at  this  time 
have  been  made  any  concessions  that  would  have  kept 
the  dynasty  and  the  constitution  the  same.  A  feeling 
of  hatred  to  the  elder  race  of  the  Bourbon  family  had 
grown  up  among  all  classes  and  provinces  of  the  king- 
dom. There  was  not,  perhaps,  a  wide  extended  con- 
spiracy against  them  ;  but  there  was  a  firm  belief  and 
conviction  that  they  could  not  endure.  I  remember  a 
conversation  that  I  had,  in  the  year  1828,  with  one  of 


PERIOD    II.  31 

the  most  intelligent  "  doctrinaires"  of  the  present 
Chamber.  I  remember  that  conversation  forming  the 
subject  of  a  letter  to  Sir  Brook  Taylor  then  at  Berlin  ; 
and  if  he  recollects,  or  has  ever  referred  to  that  letter, 
he  will  remember  that  almost  every  thing  was  then 
predicted  that  since  arrived,  with  this  difference,  that 
ten  years  were  given  to  the  development  of  events 
which  two  years  decided.  When  a  revolution  has 
commenced  its  march,  its  steps  are  not  to  be  numbered. 

Monsieur  de  Martignac  himself  shared  the  general 
conviction,  and  thus  expressed  himself  to  a  friend, 
who  repeated  the  remark  to  me  : — 

"  We  do  all  that  we  can  ;  but  all  that  we  can  do  is 
to  conduct  the  monarchy  down  stairs,  whereas  it  would 
otherwise  be  thrown  out  of  the  window." 

However  this  might  be,  the  only  chance  which  the 
monarchy  then  had  was  by  conceding  to  the  popular 
voice  in  names.,  and  thus  to  avoid  or  diminish  the  ne- 
cessity of  doing  so  too  violently  in  things.  A  country, 
when  it  knows  and  approves  of  the  general  principles 
and  opinions  of  a  minister,  will  allow  him  a  certain 
latitude  in  following  those  opinions  out.  The  mere 
appointment  of  Lord  Chatham  appeased,  in  his  time, 
the  popular  discontent ;  the  mere  appointment  of  Mr. 
Canning  quieted,  in  his  time,  the  agitation  of  the  Cath- 
olic claims. 

Change  in  the  form  of  a  government  ceases  very 
frequently  to  be  demanded  when  we  feel  sure  that  the 
spirit  animating  the  government  is  good.  The  nomi- 
nation of  the  popular  man  lulls  suspicion,  as  the  nomi- 
nation of  the  unpopular  one  awakens  it.  A  change  of 
men,  from  unpopular  to  popular  ones,  is  in  fact  the 
only,  the  ordinary,  and  the  reasonable  resource  which 
a  representative  government  affords  for  its  duration; 
and  the  cant,  and  nearly  always  hollow  and  perfidious 
cry  of  "  measures  and  not  men,"  merely  shows,  where 
it  is  sincere,  a  double  ignorance  of  human  nature  and 
affairs.  Many  acts  of  a  government  it  is  almost  im- 
possible for  any  person  out  of  the  government  to  know ; 
an  administration  with  popular  appearances  may  be 


32  RESTORATION. 

taking  a  subterraneous  road  to  arbitrary  power  :  if  the 
general  principles  which  a  man  has  hitherto  professed 
are  hostile  to  your  notions  of  right,  and  on  his  becom- 
ing a  minister  he  seems  to  act  in  a  manner  favourable 
to  your  opinions,  you  are  bound  to  mistrust  him,  for  it 
IS  more  likely  that  he  is  false  to  you  than  that  he  is 
false  to  himself.  The  statesman  who,  after  a  long  po- 
litical course,  tells  you  suddenly  that  he  means  to  sail 
on  a  new  tack,  is  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  "  Coster"  in 
politics — a  swindler  the  more  dangerous,  for  the  smil- 
ing candour  of  his  address.  This  is  the  sober  way  of 
viewing  things ;  and  this  is  the  way  which  the  public, 
with  its  broad  and  plain  common  sense,  usually  views 
them.  Mark  the  example !  M.  de  Polignac  comes 
into  office ;  the  first  act  of  the  minister,  dreaded  for 
his  Jesuitism,  is  the  abolition  of  the  unpopular  office 
of  "  minister  of  religion," — the  king  speaks  of  pros- 
perous finances — the  minister  announces  administra- 
tive amendments*  and  economical  concessions. 

But,  afar  from  these  favours  and  promises  of  ame- 
lioration, severe  and  stern,  with  folded  arms  and  knit 
brow,  the  great  body  of  the  nation  stood  aloof,  full  in 
front  of  the  throne  and  its  proud  prerogatives :  stood, 
I  say,  the  people,  firm  against  compromise  ;  imbody- 
ing  all  their  feelings  in  one  opinion ;  expressing  them 
all  in  one  remonstrance ;  replying  to  every  argument 
of  the  government  by  one  sentence  : — "  Remove  the 
minister !" 

They  listened  to  no  other  concession;  they  de- 
manded no  other  compliance  ;  for  to  an  unpopular  prin- 
ciple there  is  a  definite  and  prescribed  resistance,  but  to 
an  unpopular  person  there  is  none — there  are  no  bounds 
to  suspicion,  no  bounds  to  fear,  no  hounds  to  hatred : 
and  the  name  of  M.  de  Polignac  gathered  round  it,  and 
attracted  into  a  focus,  as  it  were,  all  the  hostile,  and 
angry,  and  dangerous  feelings,  that,  diflfering  one  from 
the  other,  various  and  dispersed,  were  burning  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  which,  in  order  to  be  irresistible, 
only  wanted  to  be  concentred. 

*  Some  in  the  Diplomacy  were  particularly  good. 


PERIOD    II.  33 

Not  a  lip  throughout  the  country  that  did  not  mur- 
mur in  echo  to  that  eloquent  and  terrible  denunciation, 
*'  Malheureuse  France  !     Malheureux  Roi  !"*  and  La- 
fayette,  the    old   banner   of  republican  feeling,   was 
brought  out  once  more  amid  popular   acclamations ; 
and  the  press  that  had  fallen  into  temporary  oblivion 
during  the  better  days  of  Martignac,  lifted  up  its  mas- 
culine voice,  and  felt  the  majesty  of  a  new  mission  ; 
while    the   nation's   representatives    expressed    their 
"  solemn  sorrow,"  and   the   nation  itself  quietly  and 
publicly  organized  a  resistance  to  any  system  of  gov- 
ernment contrary  to  "  the  national  rights,"  and,  let  me 
add,  to  "  the  national  will."     Such  was  the  awful  as- 
pect of  those  things  in  presence  of  which  the  king's 
ministry  had  to  deliberate,  when  their  maintenance  in 
office  was  the  king's  decision.     Seated  on  his  throne, 
environed  by  all  the  pride  and  circumstance  of  royal 
superstition,  Charles  X.  had  (on  the  2d  of  March,  1830) 
pronounced,  with  the  studied  accentuation  of  a  theatri- 
cal display,  his  last  address  to  the  peers  and  represent- 
atives of  France  ;  to  that  address  the  famous  majority 
of  two  hundred  and  twenty-one  had  made  their  histori- 
cal response,t  while   the  monarch,  with  a  fatal  firm- 
ness, declared  that  the  choice  which  alarmed  his  peo- 
ple was  the  vrrevocable  resolution  of  the  crown.    There 
was  a  long  controversy  in  the  cabinet.     The  govern- 
ment, however,  could  have  but  one  course  to  pursue : 
a  dissolution  was  the  first  step  :  on  the  second  Cham- 
ber being  as  imfavourable  as  the  one  preceding  it,  and 
that  it  was  so  soon  appeared,  either  the  decision  pro- 
nounced   irrevocable  was  to  be  revoked^  or  an  appeal 
to  the  people  be  succeeded  by  an  appeal  to  the  sword. 
For  some  time  prior  to  July  there  hung  upon  the 
public  mind  a  heavy  cloud,  which,  with  the  fatal  in- 
spiration of  calamitous  times,   every  one   felt   to  be 
charged  with  the  dread  burden  of  great  events.     The 
mysterious    stillness   which    brooded  over   the   royal 

*  Words  of  a  celebrated  article  published  at  the  t'me  in  the  Jour- 
nal des  Debats. 
t  See  Appendix. 

B  3 


34  RESTORATION. 

councils  rather  excited  than  dulled  expectation ;  and 
when  the  two  famous  ordonnances  appeared,  there 
was  nobody  out  of  the  diplomacy  who  had  been  de- 
ceived. They  who  best  know  Charles  X.  know  that 
the  greater  part  of  his  life  had  been  passed  in  schemes 
of  similar  catastrophes.  The  first  victim  to  the  events 
of  1789,  the  long  years  of  his  exile  had  gone  by 
amid  meditations  on  the  manner  in  which  those  events 
might  have  been  averted ;  and  with  a  royal  confidence 
in  his  own  ability,  he  always  imagined  that  he  was  pe- 
culiarly fit  for  essaying  those  perilous  shocks  of  for- 
tune by  which  a  crown  is  lost  or  made  secure.  From 
the  moment,  then,  that  M.  de  Martignac  came  into 
ofiice,  Charles  X.  had  looked  to  the  famous  XlVth 
Article*  as  the  basis  of  a  daring  plan,  which,  if  the 
conciliatory  plans  of  his  minister  were  unsuccessful, 
would  release  majesty  in  a  more  summary  manner 
from  the  vulgar  opposition  of  the  commons. 

With  more  ability  than  is  usually  attributed  to  him, 
he  saw  at  once,  on  the  retreat  of  M.  de  Villele, 
the  future  difficulties  of  his  situation ;-  he  saw  that  he 
should  be  asked  for  great  concessions — that  he  might 
be  obliged  to  make  a  great  resistance.  Certain  con- 
cessions he  was  prepared  to  make,  larger  ones  he  was 
resolved  to  refuse.  Trying  the  milder  system  first, 
"  Let  it  fail,"  said  Charles  X.,  "  and  fail  I  think  it  will, 
and  I  will  take  a  minister  of  my  own  choice,  of  my 
own  faction,  in  whom  I  can  entirely  rely.  I  will  have 
at  my  disposal  the  whole  force  of  royalty.  The 
country  may  possibly  yield  when  I  display  that  force  ; 
if  not,  I  am  determined  to  use  it."  "  La  Chambre  joue 
un  gros  jeu,"  said  he,  after  receiving  the  address  of 
the  two  hundred  and  twenty-one,  "  il  pourra  bien  lui  en 
cuire  de  blesser  ainsi  ma  couronne  !"  And  thus,  amid 
a  series  of  events  which  we  may  call  fortuitous,  but 


*  Art.  14.  DE  LA  Chaete. — Le  roi  est  le  chef  supreme  de  I'etat; 
il  commande  les  forces  de  terre  et  de  mer,  declare  la  guerre,  fait  les 
traites  de  paix,  d'alliance,  et  de  commerce,  nomme  a  tous  les  emplois 
d'administration  publique,  et  fait  les  r6glemens  et  ordonnances  n^ces- 
saires  pour  I'ex^cution  des  lois  et  la  surete  de  I'etat. 


PERIOD    II.  35 

which  were  so  intertwined  in  the  great  mesh  of  human 
affairs  as  to  make  one  almost  believe  that  each  was 
the  necessary  consequence  of  the  other ;  thus,  the  two 
principles  which  had  once  contended  came  again  into  con- 
flict, and  a  new  example  was  bequeathed  to  posterity  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  philosopher  who,  many  years  previous 
to  our  first  revolution,  declared  that  "  all  restorations 
were  impossible."  I  acknowledge,  for  my  own  part,  that 
the  more  I  linger  over  this  period  of  history,  the  more 
I  marvel ;  not  that  "  the  Restoration"  should  have  at 
length  perished,  but  that  it  should  have  so  long  endured. 
A  frank  and  honest  recognition  of  the  great  principles 
of  civil  liberty,  and  a  practical  policy  in  accordance 
with  those  principles,  must  have  led  to  the  declaration 
and  acknowledgment  that  the  monarch  held  his  crown 
from  the  people,  and  not  the  people  their  liberties  from 
the  crown.  This  would  have  been,  in  point  of  fact,  the 
revolution, — the  revolution  of  July.  It  would  have 
separated  the  monarch  altogether  from  the  emigration, 
from  the  nobility,  from  the  priesthood  ;  it  would  have 
put  down  the  maxim — that  wise  emanation  of  king- 
craft, "  That  the  king  had  never  ceased  to  reign." 

But  in  this  sentence  the  Restoration  was  contained ; 
and,  let  us  confess  the  truth,  without  it  the  descendant 
of  St.  Louis  and  Henry  IV.,  brought  into  France  by 
foreign  bayonets,  had  far  less  right  than  "  General 
Bonaparte"  to  the  French  throne.  With  this  sentence, 
then,  the  hereditary  Restoration  was  unjust ;  with  it, 
a  large  and  open  system  of  liberty  was  impossible. 
Between  these  two  difficulties  the  monarchy  was  kept 
in  a  state  of  miserable  fluctuation. 

"  Act  up  to  the  constitution  you  have  granted !" 
said  one  set  of  men.  But  no  sooner  did  the  sovereign 
prepare  to  do  this,  than  he  found  himself  at  war  with 
the  principle  on  which  that  liberty  was  given. 

"  Assert  and  maintain  the  prerogative,  which,  after 
all,  only  gave  these  free  concessions  as  a  favour,"  said 
another  party  :  and,  lo  !  the  crown  found  itself  in  con- 
flict with  its  own  concessions. 

Thrice  a  mean-way  system  of  moderation  was  tried 


36  RESTORATION. 

— by  M.  de  Talleyrand,  by  M.  de  Decazes,  by  M.  de 
Martignac.  The  first  experiment  was,  perhaps,  too 
early ;  the  second  I  consider  to  have  been  too  late  ; 
there  were  many  circumstances  in  favour  of  M.  de 
Decazes.  Could  he  have  saved  the  dynasty?  The 
question  is  difficult,  and  I  have  ventured  to  give  my 
own  opinion.  But  what  historians  may  dispute,  his- 
tory has  decided.  "  The  Restoration,"  with  its  roots 
struck  deep  into  the  past,  with  its  long  hopes  extending 
into  the  future,  is  no  more  ;  and  I  repeat,  that  we  may 
marvel  at  its  long  duration  when  we  consider  the  agi- 
tation by  which  it  was  accompanied.*  In  fifteen 
years  it  was  fairly  worn  out.  Every  new  system  of 
violence  excited  new  passions  ;  every  new  departure 
from  moderation  made  new  and  irreconcilable  enemies. 
Not  once  was  the  Chamber  "  liberal,"  but  that  it  passed 
to  doctrines  which  were  hostile  to  the  sacred  preroga- 
tives of  the  crown :  not  once  was  the  Chamber 
"  royalist,"  but  that  it  insisted  upon  a  policy  which  was 
inimical  to  the  accorded  liberties  of  the  people.  Year 
after  year  it  was  found  impossible  to  place  the  govern- 
ment in  a  just  position  ;  to  make  it  an  affectionate  and 
holy  link  between  the  king  and  the  nation.  A  system 
of  fraud  and  exclusion  separated  it  from  the  one  ;  any 
approach  to  a  fair  and  popular  representation  severed 
it  from  the  other.  Nor  was  this  all :  from  the  various 
political  events  which  had  distracted  France  for  forty 
years,  so  many  parties  had  risen  up,  that  no  one  party 
was  powerful. 

The  different  sects  united  in  opposition  were  strong ; 
but  as  each  stepped  out  singly,  and  placed  itself  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  it  betrayed  its  incapacity  for  remaining 
there.  Uncertain  what  stay  to  look  for — what  arm  to 
lean  upon — the  government  of  necessity  pursued  a 
vacillating  course.  Its  wanderings  I  have  traced  to 
their  close  ;  I  have  announced  its  end,  and  I  now  write 
its  epitaph,  while  I  call  posterity  to  witness — 


*  Under  the  Restoration,  2192  persons  were  condemned  for  political 
offences,  of  whom  108  were  to  death. 


REVIEW    OF    THE    RESTORATION.  37 

"  That  weakness  is  never  so  fatal  to  its  possessor 
as  when  accompanied  by  violence ;  and  that  an 
absolute  theory  is  the  worst  enemy  of  a  constitutional 
throne." 


REVIEW  OF  THE  RESTORATION. 

The  benefits  of  the  Restoration— From  1817  to  1827  the  wounds  of 
France  healed — Advance  in  Agriculture,  in  Manufactures,  in 
printed  Publications— A  new  Philosophy,  a  new  Literature,  a  new 
Race — The  new  Race  and  the  old  Race  in  presence — The  course 
taken  by  each. 

Say  what  you  will  of  its  ministerial  errors,  of  its 
factious  agitations,  "  the  Restoration"  as  a  period  of 
improvement  was  a  mighty  epoch.  No  country  per- 
haps ever  made  in  the  same  time  the  same  advances 
that  France  made  from  1815  to  1830. 

The  ambitious  soldier  and  the  enthusiastic  boy  may 
linger  with  a  fond  delight  over  the  narrative  of  those 
almost  miraculous  exploits,  which  place  upon  so  lofty 
a  pedestal  the  endeavours  of  human  genius  ;  the  more 
cool-blooded  politician  will  observe  that  the  Tower  of 
Babel,  the  loftiest  edifice  on  record,  was  the  least 
useful,  the  most  certain  not  to  be  completed  ;  and  that 
the  merits  of  a  reign  are  to  be  measured,  not  by  the 
admiration  it  excites,  but  by  the  benefits  it  produces. 
The  battle  of  Waterloo  left  France  the  victim  of  two 
invasions.  The  losses  which  had  been  inflicted  upon 
her  territory  have  been  estimated  at  fifteen  hundred 
millions  of  francs,  the  same  sum  that  she  was  con- 
demned to  pay  the  allies.  From  1818  to  1827,  in 
nine  years  alone,  says  M.  Dupin,  "  these  wounds,  pro- 
found and  terrible  as  they  were,  had  been  healed  ;  and 
even  their  scars  obliterated.  In  the  wars  of  twenty- 
three  years,  fifteen  hundred  thousand  men  had  perished, 
and  in  thirteen  years  their  loss  had  been  repaired." 
4 


38  REVIEW    OF    THE 

Agriculture,  which  the  presence  of  a  foreign  enemy 
had  repressed  (one  department  alone  had  suffered  to 
the  extent  of  seventy-five  millions  of  francs),  revived, 
and  had  even  advanced  during  the  Restoration,  as  well 
by  an  increase  in  horses  and  cattle,  as  by  various 
improvements  in  the  art  of  cultivation. 

The  manufactures  of  wool,  of  cotton,  of  silk,  aided 
by  the  improvement  of  machinery  and  the  experiments 
of  chymistry,  had  added  during  that  time  in  no  small 
degree  to  the  resources  of  industry  and  the  invest- 
ments for  wealth.  The  population  of  Lyons  alone 
had  advanced  in  eleven  years  from  100  to  150,000  in- 
habitants. The  product  of  indirect  taxation,  that  sign 
not  merely  of  the  riches,  but  of  the  enjoyments  of  a 
people,  had  been  swelled  during  the  interval  of  1818 
to  1827  by  twenty-five  per  cent.  The  customs  and 
the  post  produced  more,  the  lottery  less  ;  and — :a  cir- 
cumstance not  to  be  forgotten  in  the  details  of  admin- 
istration— the  expense  of  collecting  the  revenue  had 
diminished  as  the  revenue  itself  had  increased.  The 
number  of  printed  sheets  were  in  1814,  45,675,039; 
in  1826,  144,564,094  ;  thus  displaying,  in  the  produc- 
tion of  human  knowledge,  a  yet  greater  increase  and 
a  yet  greater  activity  than  in  the  other  rapidly  and  daily 
increasing  productions. 

Accroissemens  Annuels.  pour  cent, 

De  la  population  humaine § 

Du  nombre  des  chevaux        .        .        .        .        .        ,        .  I 

Du  nombre  des  moatons 1^ 

Des  consommations  indiquees  par  les  droits  indirects  .        .  3 

Idem,  par  les  octrois 3| 

Des  operations  industrielles  indiquees  par  le  revenu  des 

patentes ".....  3| 

J)e  la  circulation  indiqu6e  par  le  revenu  de  la  poste     .        .  3^ 

Du  commerce  indique  par  les  droits  de  douane     ...  4 
Des  productions  industrielles  mdiquees  par  I'exaction  de  la 

houille 4 

Idem,  par  la  fabrication  du  for 4| 

Des  publications  de  la  presse  periodique  et  non  periodique  .  9| 

*'  By  this  table  it  appears,"  says  the  valuable  little 
pamphlet  I  quote  from,*  "  que  I'accroissement  numer- 

*  "  Les  forces  61ectorales,"  by  Ch.  Dupm. 


RESTORATION.  39 

ique  de  la  population  est  mnindre  que  celui  de  toutes 
les  forces  materielles,  que  celui  de  tous  les  produits 
du  travail ;  et  que  I'accroissement  des  publications, 
qui  represente  I'activite  progressive  de  I'esprit,  est  le 
plus  grand  de  tous."*  In  three  years  (from  1817  to 
1820),  the  elementary  schools  from  856,212,  advanced 
to  have  1,063,919  scholars  ;  and  the  number  of  persons 
receiving  instruction  at  these  institutions  within  tlie 
period  contained  between  1816  and  1826,  has  been 
computed  at  five  millions  and  a  half.  Schools  of  arts, 
agriculture,  and  the  sciences,  were  formed  throughout 
the  kingdom  ;  and,  borne  along  on  this  mighty  rush  of 
new  opinions,  came  a  new  and  more  noble  philosophy 
— a  new,  a  more  rich,  a  more  glowing,  a  more  mascu- 
line, a  more  stirring,  and  energetic  literature.  The 
spirit  and  intellect  of  the  country  received  a  fresh 
birth,  and  at  the  same  time  a  fresh  race  was  born, — a 
race  that  had  neither  the  ideas,  the  wants,  nor  the  his- 
tory of  its  predecessors. 

This  was  the  real  revolution.  Within  the  last  thir- 
teen years  a  population  of  twelve  millions  and  a  half" 
had  been  added  to  "Young  France  ;"  a  population  of 
ten  millions  belonging  to  "  Old  France"  had  gone  down 
to  the  tomb.  In  1828,  the  electors  belonging  to  the 
new  "regime"  were  25,089,  to  the  ancient  regime 
15,021.  Thus  the  two  generations  were  in  presence  ; 
the  one  published  the  ordonnances,  and  the  other  raised 
the  barricades. 

*  The  effect  of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  subjoined  calculation. 
Printed  sheets  on  matters  of  science — In  1814 — 232,314 ;  in  1820— 
369,802;  in  1826-1,177,780. 


40  THE    ORDONNANCES. 


THE  ORDONNANCES. 

Not  violent  enough  for  their  purpose,  Charles  X.  would  have  acted 
more  wisely  in  throwing  himself  entirely  upon  the  army — The 
people  did  not  look  to  the  mere  act  of  the  Government,  but  its  object 
— They  saw  that  if  these  means  failed  to  effect  that  object,  another 
would  be  tried. 

On  July  26th*  appeared  the  Ordonnances,  accom- 
panied by  that  famous  report,  not  less  remarkable  for 
the  eloquence  than  for  the  history  it  contains.  As  a 
matter  of  history,  that  document  stands  forth  as  the 
most  singular  and  public  protest  against  constitutional 
liberty  that  ever  appeared  in  a  constitutional  country  ; 
as  a  display  of  eloquence,!  that  document  convinces 
us  that  arbitrary  power,  even  in  the  worst  times,  and 
under  the  least  favourable  circumstances,  will  never 
want  able,  perhaps  conscientious  defenders.  The  Or- 
donnances totally  put  down  the  liberty  of  the  press,| 
and  altered  the  system  of  election  in  a  manner  favoura- 
ble to  the  aristocratical  interests  of  the  country. 

Their  violence  has  been  reproached,  and  in  some 
degree  exaggerated :  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
they  were  not  sufficiently  violent  for  the  object  they 
had  in  view.  Such  was  the  state  of  feeling,  that  I 
deem  it  more  than  doubtful  whether  a  Chamber  elected 
according  to  the  new  prescription  would  not  have  re- 
turned a  majority  against  the  ministry  of  Polignac. 
And  this  was  the  folly  of  the  proceeding :  for  if  the 
government  had  met  with  no  immediate  resistance,  the 
difficulties  of  the  government  would  only  have  been 
in  their  commencement.     Charles  X.  most  assuredly 

*  Signed  the  25th. 

t  Supposed  to  be  written  by  M.  de  Chaunteleuze. 

}  The  press  is  put  down  because  it  points  out  certain  members  as 
unpopular,  and  advises,  contrary  to  the  royal  wish,  the  re-election  of 
the  twoh\mdred  and  twenty-one  liberal  deputies. 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  41 

would  have  done  a  wiser  thing  had  he  declared  that 
"  finding  by  experience  that  his  subjects  were  unfit  for 
the  Charta  which  had  been  given  to  them,  he  withdrew 
It,  and  threw  himself  entirely  upon  the  army  for  sup- 
port"— he  would  have  done  a  wiser  thing  for  himself 
had  he  done  this,  for  he  might  have  rallied  his  parti- 
sans around  him  by  an  appearance  of  force ;  it  is  just 
possible  too,  that  he  might  have  pleased  the  soldiery  by 
a  plausible  address  ;  while  it  is  certain  that  he  could 
not  have  made  more  enemies,  or  separated  himself 
more  entirely  from  the  great  body  of  his  subjects  than 
he  really  did. 

People  looked  not  to  the  mere  act  itself,  they  looked 
to  the  object  the  sovereign  had  in  view  who  resorted 
to  it.  They  saw  that  his  object  was  to  govern  as  he 
pleased — that  he  altered  the  form  of  government  in 
order  to  effect  that  object ;  and  that  it  was  quite  clear, 
if  the  present  experiment  were  unsuccessful,  he  would 
be  perfectly  willing,  and  was  perfectly  ready,  to  try 
any  other. 


REVOLUTION  OF  1830. 


The  conduct  of  the  Newspapers  and  the  Joumahsts — 27,  Struggle 
commenced  in  Palais  Royal — 28,  Troops  concentred  and  the  Peo- 
ple's courage  rose — The  Due  de  Raguse's  plans— How  far  success- 
ful— Night  of  28th — The  great  charge  of  the  Parisian  populace- 
Retreat  of  the  troops  from  the  Tuileries  to  the  Champs  Elysees — 
Command  taken  from  Due  de  Raguse  and  given  to  Due  de  Angou- 
l^me — Order  to  march  to  St.  Cloud. 

It  was  the  energetic  conduct  of  the  press,  which  had 
at  once  to  choose  between  ruin  and  resistance,  that 
first  aroused  the  Parisians  from  the  boding  stillness  by 
which  the  royal  decree  had  been  succeeded. 
4* 


42  REVOLUTION  OF    1S30. 

The  editors  of  the  liberal  newspapers,  fortified  by 
the  opinion  of  M.  Dupin,  and  the  ordonnance  of  M. 
Debelleyme,*  published  their  protestation.  Believing 
that  the  government  would  have  a  temporary  triumph 
— for  it  was  impossible  to  imagine  that  a  government 
which  deliberately  invited  insurrection  was  not  pre- 
pared to  resist  it, — M.  Thiers,  M.  Carrel,  and  their 
colleagues  displayed  a  spirit  worthy  of  their  position. 
The  proper  guardians  of  public  liberty,  they  placed 
themselves  in  the  van  as  its  defenders,  for  they  knew 
that  the  freedom  of  a  state  is  only  momentarily  in  peril 
as  long  as  it  possesses  citizens  ready  to  give  the  ex- 
ample of  suffering  for  freedom's  sake.  "  Le  regime 
legal,"  said  they,  "  est  interrompu,  celui  de  la  force 
est  commence,"  words  which  should  be  remembered  now^ 
for  they  would  have  been  remembered  if  the  revolt  to 
which  they  invited  had  not  proved  a  revolution.  It  was 
on  the  27th  that  the  struggle  commenced.  "Aux 
armes,  aux  armes  !"  shouted  the  students,  jumping  on 
the  chairs  of  the  Palais  Royal. 

The  cavalry  cleared  the  square,  the  gendarmerie 
charged  in  the  streets  ;  a  man  was  killed  in  the  "  Rue 
du  Lycee."  "  Vive  la  Charte !"  cried  the  mob,  as, 
careless  of  the  danger,  furious  at  the  fire,  they  attacked 
the  troops  on  every  side  with  sticks,  with  stones ;  and 
now  the  barricades  began  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore  ;  the 
"  Bourgeoisie"  shut  their  shops  ;  the  soldiers  (fifth  of 
the  line)  refused  to  fire,  and  the  consciousness  of  a 
cause  that  was  invincible  breathed  an  iron  energy  into 
the  insurrection. 

On  the  28th,  the  troops  concentrated  in  large  bands 
at  the  more  important  places,  left  many  of  the  streets 
free  which  they  had  occupied  the  day  before,  and  flat- 
tered the  people  with  the  idea  that  their  resistance  had 
been  hitherto  successful.  The  popular  courage  rose. 
The  views  of  the  people  expanded.     The  cry  of  '■'  Vive 

*  M.  Debelleyine,  president  of  the  tribunal  of  premiere  instance, 
declaring  that  the  ordonnance  relative  to  the  press  was  illegal  in  its 
form,  and  unjust  in  its  immediate  provisions,  recognised  tho  right  of 
the  journalists  to  continue  their  publications. 


REVOLUTION  OF  1830.  43 

la  Charte  !"  was  dropped  ;  the  cry  of  *'  a  has  les 
Bourbons"  was  raised.  The  Due  de  Raguse  urged  con- 
cessions.* The  ministers  declared  Paris  to  be  "era 
etat  de  si^ge,''^  and  amid  conflicting  counsels  and  use- 
less edicts,  high  above  the  voice  of  authority  swelled 
the  popular  tempest,  sweeping  at  every  instant  with 
a  more  terrible  wrath  over  the  minds  of  men,  and 
scattering  far  and  wide  the  feelings  which  shook  the 
foundations  of  the  throne.  The  commandant  hesitated. 
Should  he  take  a  position  and  be  counselled  by  events  ? 
Should  he  evacuate  Paris  and  establish  himself  without 
the  walls  ?  Should  he  march  forward  at  once  into  the 
heart  of  the  city  against  the  insurgents  ? 

The  last  plan  was  the  boldest,  perhaps  the  best. 
Along  the  Boulevards,  along  the  Quais,  to  the  Bastille, 
to  the  Place  de  Greve,  to  the  Marche  des  Innocens, 
advanced  the  troops — and  the  clatter  of  the  cavalry 
and  the  heavy  rattling  of  the  cannon,  and  the  shouts 
and  the  musket-shots  of  the  populace,  announced  in 
this  direction  the  recommencement  of  the  contest ;  and 
now  from  every  door,  from  every  corner,  from  every 
passage,  from  every  window,  an  invisible  and  invul- 
nerable enemy  poured  forth  their  fire  ;  and  paving 
stones,  and  tiles,  and  bottles,  and  bricks,  and  logs  of 
wood,  and  masses  of  lead,  tossed  from  the  tops  of  the 
houses,  hurled  across  the  streets,  bruised  and  beat 
down  the  soldier,  who,  incapable  of  defence,  disap- 
proving of  his  cause,  marched  on,  undesirous  of  vic- 
tory, and  forbidden  by  honour  from  submitting  to  defeat. 

Felled  trees,  overturned  carriages,  barrels  filled  with 
stones,  formed  new  ramparts  at  every  step  against  the 
harassed  cavalry  ;  and  on  all  sides  you  might  have  seen 
the  veterans  of  Napoleon  and  the  schoolboys  of  the 
"  Ecole  Polytechnique"  leading,  exhorting,  instructing, 
fighting.  The  "  garde  nationale"  appeared  in  their 
uniform ;  the  whole  city  engaged  in  the  struggle  ;  while 
the  tri-coloured  flag  was  hoisted  on  the  towers  of 
Notre  Dame ! 

*  "  The  honour  of  the  Crown,"  said  he  to  Charles  the  Tenth, 
**inay  yet  b©  saved.    To-morrow,  perhaps,  this  will  be  impossible." 


44  REVOLUTION  OF  1830. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  resistance  accumulating  at 
every  step,  the  four  columns  which  had  advanced 
arrived  at  their  respective  destinations.  General  St. 
Chamans  marched  up  the  Boulevards  as  far  as  the 
Bastille,  and  driven  from  the  Rue  St.  Antoine,  returned 
by  the  bridge  of  Austerlitz,  and  the  Esplanade  of  the 
Invalides,  to  the  Place  Louis  XV.  General  Talon 
crossed  the  Pont  Neuf,  advanced  to  the  Place  de 
Greve,  and  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  his  men, 
carried  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  which  was  then  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  people,  but  which,  having  no  ammuni- 
tion, he  evacuated  during  the  night.  General  Quin- 
sonnas  arrived  without  much  loss  at  the  Marche  des 
Innocens,  where  he  found  himself  blockaded  in  all 
directions.  Rescued  by  the  almost  incredible  valour 
of  a  Swiss  battalion  from  this  situation,  he  took  up  his 
position,  according  to  the  orders  he  had  received,  along 
the  Quai  de  I'Ecole.  General  Wall  went  to  and  from 
the  Place  de  Victoire  and  the  Place  de  Vendome  without 
difficulty.  This  was  the  result  of  the  military  operations 
of  the  28th.  For  a  moment  the  people  believed  that  that 
result  was  almost  entirely  hostile  to  the  popular  cause  ; 
and  many  of  those  most  active  in  commencing  the  resist- 
ance, now  retired  from  Paris  ;  but  while  some  in  the  city 
believed  in  the  success  of  the  troops,  the  troops  them- 
selves felt  that  they  were  discomfited.  This  was  the 
opinion  of  the  Due  de  Raguse.  "  Je  ne  dots  pas  vous 
cacher"  said  he,  in  a  letter  to  the  king,  "  que  la  situu' 
tion  des  choses  devient  de  plus  en  plus  grave.''''  This  was 
the  opinion  of  General  Vincent,  who,  forcing  the  king's 
apartment,  declared  to  him,  "  Que  tout  etait  perdu,  et 
qu'il  n^y  avait  plus  qu'd  rapporter  les  ordonnances.''^ 

M.  de  Polignac,  however,  still  persisted,  and  the 
struggle  was  referred  to  a  third  day  for  its  ultimate 
decision. 

Pursuant  to  an  order  which  the  Due  de  Raguse  had 
received  from  St.  Cloud,  the  royal  forces  were  now 
concentrated  at  the  Tuileries,  the  Louvre,  and  the 
Palais  Royal. 

The  whole  of  Paris,  with  the  exception  of  these 


REVOLUTION  OF  1830.  46 

places,  was  in  the  undisputed  possession  of  the  Pari- 
sian?. The  posts  which  had  been  forced  in  the  morn- 
ing, they  found  vacated  in  the  evening,  and  the  first 
impression  which  the  taking  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  had 
occasioned,  was  more  than  effaced  by  its  subsequent 
abandonment.  The  night  came  :  if  it  be  true  as  was 
deemed  by  Tacitus,  that  the  warrior's  mind  is  over- 
shadowed by  the  aspect  of  a  disastrous  sky  ;  that  stars, 
dim  and  pale,  infuse  int©  the  soul  their  uncertain  hue, 
and  that  the  midnight  enterprise  languishes  under  the 
omen  of  a  clouded  moon ;  the  citizen  soldier  was  happy 
in  his  auspices  ;  ipuvfT,  and  bright,  and  glorious  as  his 
own  cause,  was  the  heaven  above  his  head,  on  the 
night  which  intervened  between  the  28th  and  29th  of 
July ;  and  now  a  wide  watch  is  kept  throughout  the 
city ;  every  eye  is  awake,  every  hand  is  in  action. 
Here  the  pavement  is  upturned— here  the  torch  is 
planted — here  the  weapon  is  prepared — everywhere 
you  may  see  the  women  mingling  with  the  men — now 
sharing  their  labours — now  binding  up  their  wounds. 

No  distant  and  unruly  noise  mars  the  mystery  of  the 
hour ;  but  there  circulates  a  confused  and  immense 
murmur — the  cannon,  the  tocsin  is  still ;  the  busy  gun 
has  ceased  to  be  heard,  not  a  carriage  moves  ;  but  the 
chopping  of  wood,  the  rolling  of  stones,  the  hammering 
at  arms,  the  exchange  of  signals,  the  march  of  senti- 
nels, the  groans  of  sufferers,  mingling  together,  form 
a  mass  of  stifled  and  solemn  sound,  more  awful,  more 
terrible,  perhaps,  in  this  pause  of  action,  than  the  loud 
thunder  of  artillery,  or  the  crash  of  careering  squadrons. 

By  the  morning  there  were  six  thousand  barricades 
in  Paris.  The  great  force  of  the  royal  troops  was  at 
the  Louvre,  on  the  Place  de  Carousel,  on  the  Place 
Louis  XV.,  on  the  Boulevard  de  la  Madeleine,  and  on 
the  Place  Vendome,  while  cannon  was  so  placed  as  to 
sweep  the  Rue  de  Richelieu,  and  the  Place  du  Palais 
Royal.  The  day  commenced  with  a  proclamation, 
which  declared  that  hostilities  would  be  suspended  by 
the  royal  troops  :  it  produced  no  effect.  The  people's 
courage  was  animated  by  the  previous  day's  struggle — 
21 


46  REVOLUTION  OF   1839. 

by  the  last  night's  labours — by  the  sight  of  the  national 
uniform  now  mixed  up  in  all  their  groups,  and  of  tho 
tricoloured  flag  now  flying  from  all  their  houses. 

The  bands  that  had  hitherto  been  scattered  and 
spread  throughout  the  town  assembled  more  regularly, 
and  combined  their  plans  of  resistance  and  attack. 
On,  in  the  front  of  the  Parisians,  marched  the  ardent 
youth  of  the  Polytechnic  school,  the  students  of  law 
and  of  medicine — and  on  behind  them  poured  the  de- 
termined populace, — on  they  poured  along  one  side 
down  the  Faubourg  St,  Honore,  down  the  Boulevards 
— on  they  poured  along  the  other — down  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  along  the  bridges — on  they  poured  to  the 
Place  Louis  XV. ; — where  the  soldiers,  fatigued,  fam- 
ished, disgusted  with  their  cause,  disgusted  with  the 
cowardice  of  those  for  whom  they  fought,  still  looked 
with  a  gallant  face  on  the  dark  and  angry  masses 
which  menaced  them  in  all  directions. 

At  one  time  there  were  hopes  of  an  armistice :  the 
Due  de  Raguse  entered  into  a  parley  with  the  citizens, 
advancing  by  the  Rue  de  Richelieu — but  at  this  mo- 
ment, in  a  new  and  unexpected  quarter,  recommenced 
the  firing.  The  Louvre,  evacuated  by  mistake,  had 
been  entered  by  the  people  ;  the  troops  in  the  Place 
de  Carousel  were  seized  with  a  sudden  panic  :  the 
commandant  had  only  time  to  throw  himself  on  his 
horse,  and  charging  at  the  head  of  his  men  he  cleared 
for  a  moment  the  court  before  the  Tuileries.  But  the 
Tuileries  themselves  were  soon  entered  by  the  gate  of 
the  Pont  Royal.  Their  defenders  jumped  from  the 
windows  into  the  gardens :  all  discipline  was  gone  ; 
the  terror  was  universal,  and  the  utmost  efforts  of  the 
marshal  could  only  infuse  some  degree  of  order  into 
the  retreat.  A  Swiss  battalion  in  the  gardens  covered 
the  rear ;  the  force  in  the  Place  Louis  XV.  checked 
the  multitudes  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Honore,  and  allowed 
the  troops  still  on  the  Boulevard  de  la  Madeleine  an 
opportunity  to  retire  :  retire  they  did  by  the  Champs 
Elysees  ;  and  at  the  Barri^re  de  I'Etoile,  the  marshal 
received  the  letter  which  announced  the  appointment 


REVOLUTION    OF     1830.  47 

of  the  Due  d'Angoulema  to  the  office  of  commander-in- 
chief,  and  ordered  the  royal  forces  to  be  directed  to 
St.  Cloud. 

Paris  was  now  triumphant :  the  contest  of  the  three 
days  was  over.  The  people  had  fought  bravely,  des- 
perately, and  doubtful  as  the  struggle  had  been,  they 
had  not  from  the  commencement  wanted,  among  the 
legal  and  civil  authorities  of  France,  determined  and 
courageous  defenders. 


48  REVOLUTION    OF    1830. 


REVOLUTION  OF  1830, 
IT. 

26th,  Civil  resistance  of  the  Journalists— Meeting  of  Deputies- 
View  taken  by  M.  Laborde — View  by  M.  Perier — How  far  M. 
Perier  was  right — 27th,  Meeting  of  Deputies  at  M.  Perier's— First 
meeting  of  Deputies  at  M.  Puyraveau's — Second  meeting  at  M. 
Berard's — Proclamation  agreed  to,  and  message  sent  to  the  Due  de 
Kagusa  by  the  first — The  names  of  all  the  liberal  Deputies  at  Paris 
affixed  to  the  proclamation  by  the  second — 29th,  Meeting  of  Depu- 
ties ;  different  feelings  among  them  from  those  of  preceding  days 
■ — Fictitious  Government  of  M.  Berard — Real  provisional  Govern- 
ment appointed — Civil  transactions  at  Paris  in  favour  of  the  people 
now  arrived  at  the  same  period  as  that  to  which  military  affairs 
have  been  conducted — What  took  place  at  St.  Cloud  and  the  Court 
and  among  the  Ministry  during  this  time — 27th,  M.  de  Polignac 
gives  the  command  of  Paris  to  the  Due  de  Ragusa — Want  of  pre- 
paration at  Paris — The  Council  assembles  at  night  and  declares 
the  city  "  en  6tatde  si^ge" — Charles  X.  in  the  mean  time  perfectly 
tranquil — 28th,  the  King  might  have  made  favourable  terms — Did 
not  think  himself  in  danger — Mass  ;  whist ;  ceremonies  as  usual — 
In  vain  a  Deputation  waited  on  M.  Polignac — Confusion  among  the 
troops — Camps  of  Luneville  and  St.  Omer  ordered  to  march — Min- 
isters ignorant  even  on  the  29th  of  the  real  state  of  things — The 
Due  de  Raguse's  advice  to  the  Council ;  M.  Polignac's  opinion — 
Mission  of  M.  Argout  and  M.  Semonville  to  St.  Cloud — The  dis- 
position in  wliich  they  found  the  King — The  Ordonnances  recalled 
by  the  advice  of  the  Ministry — New  Administration  formed  with 
General  Geiard,  and  M.  de  Mortemart,  and  M.  Perier — Charles  X. 
would  not  sign  any  order  but  that  which  named  M.  Mortemart 
"  President  du  Conseil" — Fatal  effects  of  delay — The  fortunes  of 
Charles  X.  and  General  Lafayette  once  more  in  opposition. 

On  the  26th  the  joiimals  had  agreed  to  the  protes- 
tation I  have  spoken  of,  and  many  electors,  assembled 
at  the  bureau  of  the  "  National,"  had  determined  to  re- 
fuse the  payment  of  taxes.  A  meeting  of  liberal  dep- 
uties had  also  taken  place  at  M.  Laborde's.  At  this 
meeting  opinions  were  divided.  Monsieur  de  Laborde 
himself,  M.  Villemain,  M.  Daunon,  contended  that  a 
violation  of  the  charter  had  released  the  people  from 
their  obligations,  that  such  an  opinion  should  be  loudly 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  49 

pronounced  by  the  deputies  at  Paris,  and  that  the  force 
which  the  crown  arrayed  against  the  nation  should  be 
met  by  such  force  as  the  national  representatives  could 
bring  against  the  crown !  Monsieur  Perier  was  for 
more  moderate  councils  : — he  considered  the  Chamber 
legally  dissolved ;  the  ordonnances  themselves  he 
looked  upon  as  unwise  and  imprudent  edicts,  though 
justified  by  the  letter  of  the  charta.  "  Even,"  said  he, 
"  if  they  be  not  so,  the  power  to  decide  between  the 
sovereign  and  the  people  cannot  be  assumed  by  any 
set  of  individuals." 

"  Let  us,"  he  continued,  "  as  the  guardians  of  the 
public  peace,  confine  ourselves  to  presenting  a  respect- 
ful address  to  the.  monarch,  requesting  the  repeal  of 
measures  by  which  that  peace  seems  likely  to  be  dis- 
turbed." 

M.  C.  Perier  spoke  reasonably.  A  resistance  im- 
provised against  a  government  which  has  had  the 
means  of  preparing  for  its  defence — is  in  most  cases  a 
hazardous  expedient.  An  unsuccessful  recourse  to 
arms  is  more  fatal  to  the  popular  cause  than  the  most 
passive  submission ;  and  it  is  only  in  very  rare  and 
very  extreme  cases  that  a  sound  policy  will  justify  the 
more  violent  instead  of  the  more  moderate  course ; 
which,  if  it  promise  less  than  the  former,  also  risks 
less. 

Moreover,  it  is  idle  to  disguise  the  fact.  The  right 
assumed  by  Charles  the  Tenth  would,  if  left  to  the 
calm  decision  of  lawyers,  have  involved  a  doubtful 
claim.  But  there  are  cases  which  lawyers  can  never 
be  called  upon  calmly  to  decide.  If  we  can  fancy  a 
people  with  eyes  bent  on  the  ground,  and  arms  folded, 
lost  in  the  most  peaceable  and  profound  meditation, 
coming  to  an  eminent  jurisconsult,  and  requesting 
mildly  to  know  whether  they  have  a  right  to  resist 
their  government,  whatever  might  be  their  right,  it 
would  be  their  wisdom  and  their  policy  not  to  do  so. 
But  when  a  whole  people  feel  at  once,  as  by  inspira- 
tion— feel  without  pause,  or  without  reflection — that 
their    overnment  is  changed- -that  their  liberties  are 


50  REVOLUTION    OF    1830. 

violated,  that  their  laws  are  broken  thiougli — they  do 
not  err,  they  cannot  err,  if  all  the  lawyers  in  the  uni- 
verse, consulting  all  the  laws  that  ever  were  written, 
declared  the  contrary — they  have  a  right  to  resist,  nay, 
more — they  are  certain  to  resist  with  success. 

Monsieur  Peiier,  and  those  who  adopted  M.  Perier's 
opinions,  spoke  and  thought  then  like  reasonable  men ; 
but  in  all  great  crises,  that  part  of  our  minds  which  is  the 
most  passionate  and  imaginative  rises  above  our  ordi- 
nary reason.  It  has  a  more  powerful  and  comprehen- 
sive judgment ;  a  clearer  and  more  sympathetic  pre- 
science. In  great  emergencies,  your  man  of  feeing  is 
right,  your  man  of  calculation  is  wrong.  A  few  pas- 
sionate words  of  Mirabeau  judged .  and  decided  the 
revolution  of  1789. 

The  meeting  at  M.  Laborde's  was  without  result. 
On  the  27th  a  similar  meeting  took  place  at  M.  Pe- 
rier's.  Here  Messrs.  Mauguin,  Bertin  de  Vaux,  De 
Puyraveau,  were  of  the  opinion  expressed  the  day  be- 
fore by  M.  de  Laborde  ;  Messrs.  Sebastiani  and  M. 
Dupin  adopted  the  previous  opinion  of  M.  Perier.* 
After  some  debate  on  the  propriety  of  a  letter  to  Charles 
the  Tenth,  this  meeting  ended  like  the  former  with 
an  appointment  for  the  morrow. 

On  the  28th,  M.  de  Puyraveau,  M.  Mauguin,  M.  La- 
fitte,  and  General  Lafayette  (who  had  then  arrived) 
pronounced  all  reconciliation  impossible,  and  were  for 
inviting  the  Chamber  to  place  itself  behind  the  barri- 
cades of  the  people.  Messrs.  Dupin,  Sebastiani,  and 
Guizot  still  protested  against  any  act  contrary  to  the 

*  An  assemblage  of  electors  at  M.  G.  Gassicourt's  produced  more 
important  results.  It  was  there  agreed  to  form  twelve  committees  to 
correspond  with  the  twelve  arondissements  of  Paris ;  twelve  commit- 
tees sitting  permanently,  and  organizing  and  exciting  resistance  in 
their  several  districts. 

These  boards  were  to  have  a  common  centre,  and  communicate 
through  M.  Schonen  with  the  liberal  deputies. 

Such  was  the  existing  difference  of  opinion,  even  at  this  time,  in 
respect  to  active  resistance,  that  M.  Perier  said  to  M.  Schonen,  who 
was  exciting  the  people — Vous  nous  rendez  en  sortant  de  la  legcUiti — 
votis  nous  faites  quitter  une  position  superbe.  On  the  same  evening,  M. 
Odillon  Barrot  said  that  war  was  declared,  that  force  alone  could 
decide  the  contest,  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  one  to  take  arms 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  61 

law,  and  declared  that  the  Chamber  should  remain  as  a 
mediator  in  the  conflict,  and  pronounce  itself  merely 
the  advocate  of  public  order.  A  proclamation,  much 
in  this  sense,  containing  a  compromise  between  the 
two  parties,  although  opposed  by  M.  Lafitte  as  beneath 
the  exigencies  of  the  occasion,  was  at  last  agreed  to  : 
it  was  moreover  resolved  to  send  a  deputation  to  the 
Due  de  Raguse  with  an  order,  delivered  in  the  name  of 
the  law,  to  stay,  on  his  own  personal  responsibility,  the 
fury  of  the  troops.  This  first  meeting  on  the  28th 
separated  at  two  o'clock  to  meet  at  four.* 

Its  result  had  been  the  proclamation,!  which,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  be  published  till  the  following  day, 
the  deputation  to  the  Due  de  Raguse,  and  a  declara- 
tion from  General  Lafayette,  expressing,  as  I  have 
stated,  the  resolution  he  had  adopted  on  his  arrival  at 
Paris,  to  place  himself,  at  all  hazards,  at  the  head  of 
the  insurrection. 

In  the  short  interv.al  which  took  place  between  the 
first  and  the  second  meeting  of  tiie  deputies,  the  pros* 
pects  of  the  people  had  appeared  rather  on  the  decline. 
Neither  was  the  answer  of  Marmont,  "  that  he  would 
only  accept  unqualified  submission  as  a  basis  of  treaty," 
well  calculated  to  restore  the  courage  of  any  whose 
spirit  had  begun  to  fail. 

Messrs.  Villemain,  Bertin  de  Vaux,  and  Sebastiani, 
although  the  two  former  had  been  hitherto  sufficiently 
energetic,  now  refused  to  sign  the  proclamation  of  the 
morning,  and  retired  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of 
their  colleagues.  More  favourable  advices,  however, 
arrived  before  the  meetinghadbrokenup,andM.  Guizot, 
who,  though  willing  to  make  an  easy  compromise  with 
the  crown  at  a  more  fortunate  moment,  showed  both 
courage  and  presence  of  mind  at  this  important  crisis, 
proposed  at  once  to  affix  to  the  proclamation  the  names 
of  all  the  deputies  of  the  liberal  party  known  to  be  at 

*  To  meet  at  M.  Berard's. 

t  This  proclamation,  given  to  M.  Coste,  the  editor  of  the  "  Temps," 
for  insertion,  was  rendered  by  him  more  popular  and  more  energetic 
than  it  was  originally  conceived. 

C2 


52  REVOLUTION    OF    1830. 

Paris.  This  measure,  after  some  dispute,  was  adopted 
at  the  suggestion  of  M.  Lafitte,  who  rather  happily 
observed,  "  That  if  the  people  were  defeated,  there  was 
no  fear  but  that  the  deputies  whose  signatures  had  been 
used  without  their  consent  would  deny  their  connection 
with  the  paper  it  was  affixed  to  ;  while  if  things  turned 
out  otherwise,  few  would  notice  their  absence  or  ex- 
press any  disapprobation  at  the  liberty  taken  with  their 
names."*  Another  meeting  took  place  at  eight 
o'clock,  at  M.  Puyraveau's,  when  Lafayette,  Mauguin, 
Laborde,  were  still  for  adopting  a  decided  part, — for 
even  publicly  appearing  in  their  uniform  of  deputies, 
and  with  the  tricolour  in  their  hats  ;  while  General 
Sebastiani,  on  the  other  hand,  was  still  anxious  that 
some  power  should  remain  capable  of  mediation,  and 
not  committed  by  any  decided  act  of  hostility  against 
Charles  X.  Those  who  were  of  the  former  opinion 
agreed  to  meet  at  five  o'clock  the  following  morning  at 
M.  Lafitte's. 

On  the  29th,  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  not  at  five,  the 
meeting  took  place ;  and  instead  of  ten  deputies  who 
had  met  the  night  before  at  M.  de  Puyraveau's,  between 
thirty  and  forty  were  collected.  The  disposition  that 
prevailed,  even  among  the  more  moderate,  was  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  preceding  day.f 

At  this  time  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  Swiss 
and  Royal  Guards,  still  fighting,  fought  retreatingly ; 
and,  driven  successively  from  each  post  they  had  occu- 
pied, were  concentrating  themselves  for  a  last  stand 
upon  the  Tuileries  and  the  Place  Louis  XV.  But  it 
was  not  merely  the  retreat  of  the  troops  which  inspired 
that  extraordinary  confidence  which  begets  extraordi- 


*  Monsieur  Dupin's  name  was  omitted,  on  knowing  which  he  ex- 
pressed great  regret. 

j  This  was  natural :  a  grrat  change  had  taken  place  in  passing 
events ,  nor  are  such  vicissitudes  of  feeling  in  moments  like  these  to 
be  held  up  to  ridicule  and  blame.  That  which  is  caution  at  one 
time  becomes  timidity  at  another,  and  though  in  such  crises  men  of  an 
energetic  resolution  are  required,  it  is  not  amiss  that  some  should 
show  a  more  peaceful  and  careful  disposition.  We  sympathize  with 
the  more  daring ;  it  is  not  necessary  to  censure  the  more  prudent. 


IJEVOLUTION    OF    1830.  63 

nary  success  into  the  popular  cause.  To  M.  Berard, 
I  believe,  was  owing  the  bold  and  ingenious  concep- 
tion of  a  fictitious  government,  consisting  of  Generals 
Gerard  and  Lafayette  and  the  Due  de  Choiseul.  No 
such  government  existed  ;  but  it  was  cleverly  and 
plausibly  announced  to  exist,  and  a  sentinel  placed  at 
the  Hotel  de  Ville  repulsed  every  one  who  requested 
an  audience  with  this  imaginary  authority,  by  saying, 
"  On  ne  passe  pas ;  le  gouvernement  est  en  confer- 
ence." The  mere  mention  of  a  government  operated 
as  a  charm  ;  and  decided  the  last  remaining  doubts  as 
to  the  success  of  the  people.  Such  was  the  state  of 
things  on  the  morning  of  the  29th,  when,  as  I  have 
said,  the  deputies  met  at  M.  Lafitte's  ;  and  it  was  then 
that  a  commission,  consisting  of  five  deputies  (Lafitte, 
Schonen,  Puyraveau,  Lobau,  and  C.  Perier),*  replaced 
the  fictitious  creation  of  M.  Berard. 

I  have  now  conducted  the  civil  transactions  of  the 
three  days  to  the  point  at  which  I  left  the  military 
operations.  It  only  remains  for  me  to  say  what  had 
been  taking  place  during  these  events  in  the  cabinet 
and  at  the  court.  On  the  morning  of  the  27th,  M.  de 
Polignac  first  made  known  to  the  king  the  troubles 
which  had  taken  place  the  preceding  evening,  and 
Charles  X.  sent  for  the  Due  de  Raguse  and  intrusted 
him  with  the  command  so  fatal  to  his  reputation  and 
his  fortunes.  On  arriving  at  Paris,  the  marshal  found 
the  most  utter  want  of  preparation  for  that  kind  of 
resistance  which  the  government  ought  to  have  ex- 
pected. The  troops  were  not  even  consigned  to  their 
quarters,  and  it  was  necessary  to  wait  the  muster  hour 
in  order  to  assemble  them  together.  Things,  as  v 
have  seen,  not  proceeding  so  quietly  as  was  expected, 
the  council,  assembled  at  night,  decided  on  proclaiming 
Paris  "  en  etat  de  siege,''^  which  was  done  the  following 
morning.  In  the  mean  time  Charles  X.,  who  had 
ordered  the  Due  de  Raguse  to  return  in  the  evening  to 
St.  Cloud  if  the  city  were  quiet,  remained  in  the  most 

*  Mauguin  was  afterward  added. 
5* 


54  REVi-LUTION    OF     1830. 

perfect  state  of  tranquillity,  notwithstanding  his  absence. 
"  II  ny  a  rien^''  he  said  to  an  officer  about  his  person  ; 
"^"e  Vavais  autorise  a  revenir,  mais  il  a  hien  fait  de 
Tester.'''' 

The  28th  was  the  critical  day.  The  court  on  this 
day  might  have  made  its  peace  with  dignity,  for  there 
was  a  moment,  as  I  have  shown,  when  the  troops  were 
deemed  to  have  been  successful,  and  this  was  the 
moment  when  the  Due  de  Raguse,  demanding  conces- 
sion from  the  deputies,  urged  it  most  strongly  to  the 
king.  The  same  fatality,  however,  which  induced 
Charles  I.  to  reject  the  moderate  advice  of  Clarendon 
presided  at  St.  Cloud.*  Monsieur  de  Komierowski, 
sent  by  the  due  with  his  despatch,  was  honoured  by 
no  written  reply,  and  merely  told  to  charge  the  mar- 
shal de  tenir  bien,  de  r^unir  ses  forces  sur  le  Carrousel 
et  cl  la  Place  Louis  XV.,  et  d'agir  avcc  des  masses. 
Everybody  about  the  palace  was  in  the  most  serene 
quietude.  In  the  morning — mass,  the  usual  ceremonies 
and  receptions  ; — in  the  evening — the  rubber  at  whist : 
less  anxiety  was  expressed  for  the  destinies  of  the 
nation  than  for  the  turn  of  a  card. 

In  vain  a  deputation  waited  on  Monsieur  de  Polignac : 
he  thought  he  showed  firmness  when  he  displayed  im- 
becility ;  and  when  told  that  the  troops  were  going  over 
to  the  people,  merely  observed,  that  "  it  would  then  be 
necessary  to  fire  upon  the  troops!"  Horses  and 
soldiers  were  unprovided  with  food,  but  that  was  a 
matter  of  little  importance  ;  by  such  trifles  as  these  the 
peace  of  the  king  and  the  security  of  his  minister  were 
not  to  be  disturbed.  During  the  night,  however,  it  was 
decided  to  give  a  month  and  a  half's  pay  to  the  regi- 
ments at  Paris,  and  an  order  was  sent  to  the  camps  of 
Luneville  and  St.  Omer  to  advance  upon  St.  Cloud. 
Even  on  the  29th  the  ministers  blockaded  in  the  Tuile- 

*  If  Monsieur  Lafitte  and  General  Gerard  proposed  peace,  it  was 
from  insolence  and  they  were  strong,  or  from  fear  and  they  were 
weak,  and  the  presumption  and  the  timidity  of  rebels  were  equally  to 
be  despised. 


RKVOLUTION     OF     1830.  56 

nes  were  still  in  a  state  of  the  most  complete  ignorance 
as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  insurrection. 

They  mistook  that  for  a  plot  which  was  the  result 
of  inspiration.  "  Ce  sont  les  federes  qui  ont  conserve 
leur  ancienne  organisation,"  said  Monsieur  de  Peyron- 
net.  He  was  soon  undeceived.  The  Due  de  Raguse 
himself  assembled  the  council,  and  advised,  as  tlie  last 
resource,  a  treaty  with  the  people  on  the  basis  of  a 
repeal  of  the  ordonnances.  The  ministers  had  no 
power  for  this.  "  Come  and  obtain  it  Yrom  the  king," 
said  Monsieur  de  Peyronnet.  "  Nothing  can  be  better 
for  the  roj'-al  cause  than  the  present  aspect  of  affairs," 
said  the  infatuated  Prince  de  Polignac.  At  this  mo- 
ment arrived  Monsieur  d'Argout  and  Monsieur  de 
Semonville,  who  were  also  come  to  urge  the  ministers 
to  adopt  a  speedy  and  conciliatory  decision.  Quarrel- 
ling* with  Monsieur  de  Polignac,  they  set  out  for  St. 
Cloud,  where  the  marshal  himself,  after  the  complete 
discomfiture  of  his  troops,  shortly  afterward  arrived. 

In  what  disposition  did  they  find  the  king  ?  Already, 
before  the  appearance  of  Monsieur  de  Semonville,  the 
Due  de  Mortemart  had  made  two  fruitless  attempts  to 
persuade  him  to  recall  the  ordonnances.  "  Bah  !  bah ! 
ce  ri'est  rien,'"  said  Charles  X.,  "  nc  vous  inquietez  pas^ 
"  Je  ne  veux  pas  monter  en  charette  comme  mon 
frere,"t  was  his  reply  to  any  argument  urging  conces- 
sion.J 

At  the  advice  of  his  ministers  themselves,  however, 
he  was  at  length  induced  to  relent ;  the  ordonnances 
were  to  be  recalled,  M.  de  Mortemart  named  President 
du  Conseil,  and  M.  C.  Perier  and  General  Gerard 
included  in  the  new  administration.  But  the  only 
order  to  which  Charles  X.  could  be  prevailed  upon  to 

*  Monsieur  de  Semonville  and  M.  de  Polignac  felt  for  each  other 
the  contempt  which  a  man  of  the  world  feels  for  an  enthusiast,  and 
which  an  enthusiast  returns  for  a  man  of  the  world. 

t  Nobody  so  obstinate  as  a  weak  man  wh-^n  he  once  has  an  opinion. 
The  idea  which  governed  the  hfe  of  Charles  X.  was  that  his  brother 
had  fallen  from  a  want  of  firmness. 

X  The  situation  of  the  Duchess  d' A ngoul^me,  at  that  time  travel- 
ling in  the  provinces,  and  very  possibly  exposed  to  popular  violence, 
was  the  sole  circumstance  that  seemed  to  affect  him 


56  REVOLUTION    OF    1830. 

affix  his  signature  immediately  was  that  relatmg  Lit 
M.  de  Mortemart.  The  others,  the  orders  which 
revoked  the  ordonnances,  named  C.  Perier  and 
General  Gerard,  and  convoked  the  Chambers  for  the 
3d  of  August — these,  with  that  fatal  weakness  which 
induces  us  to  withhold  to  the  last  moment  what  we 
are  yet  determined  to  grant — these  he  could  not  he 
prevailed  upon  to  sign  that  night,  and  twenty-four 
hours  went  by  while  the  proverb  that  "  every  minute 
is  an  hour"  was  being  literally  fulfilled  ; — and  now, — 
The  wheel  of  fortune,  which  had  been  so  rapidly 
turning  since  1789,  seemed  to  be'  again  pausing  at  the 
very  place  where  it  had  been  forty-one  years  before, 
and  there  was — the  Comte  d'Artois  crushed  beneath  it, 
and  at  the  topmost  pinnacle  of  its  curve — General 
Lafayette. 


REVOLUTION  OF  1830. 
III. 

General  Lafayette's  march  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville— M.  Lafitte  gives  M. 
F.  Jansoua  passport  for  the  Due  de  Mortemart,  who  does  not  come 
on  the  evening  of  the  29th,  as  was  expected — Consequences — The 
evening  of  the  29th — 30th,  two  proclamations  to  the  people  and 
the  anny — M.  de  Mortemart  now  arrives — Fate  of  his  mission — 
Agitation  of  the  people — Necessity  of  prompt  decision — Mission  to 
Neuilly — Received  by  the  Due  d'Orleans — State  of  things  on  the 
night  of  the  30th — 31st,  the  Due  d'Orleans  acceptsthe  lieutenancy 
of  the  kingdom — Visits  the  Hotel  de  Ville — Feehngs  of  the  people 
— Is  received  by  Lafayette — Conversations  that  then  took  place — 1st 
of  August  a  day  of  Jubilee — 2d  of  August,  abdication  of  Charles 
X.  and  the  Dauphin — 3d,  Chambers  met — 4th,  the  Chamber  of 
Peers,  which  had  hitherto  kept  aloof,  nominated  a  commission  to 
reply  to  the  speech  of  the  heutenant-general — 7th,  the  Due  d'Or- 
leans invited  by  the  two  Chambers  to  accept  the  Crown — His  an- 
swer— 9th,  Louis  Phihppe  proclaimed  King  of  the  French — What 
had  taken  place  to  Charles  X.  between  30th  of  July  and  16th  of 
August,  when  this  unfortunate  prince  embarked  from  Cherbourg. 

"  Vive  Lafayette  !  Vive  Lafayette  !"  this  was  the 
cry  in  every  street,  as  down  from  every  window,  as 
down  from  every  balustrade  whence  the  ball  and  the 
broken  bottle  and  the  massive  pavement  lately  rushed, 
now  dropped  gentle  flowers  on  the  venerable  head  of  the 
friend  of  Washington,  of  the  old  general  of  the  National 
Guard  ;*  and  wafted  on  every  breeze  flew  the  national 
cockade,  the  old  and  famous  tri-coloured  riband  ;  and 
lo  !  the  very  hero  of  popular  parade,  the  revolutionary 
veteran,  bowing,  smiling,  embracing ;  and  lo  !  the  im- 
mense masses,  shouting,  laughing,  waving  their  hats, 
firing  their  arms  !  To  the  Hotel  de  Ville  marched  the 
long  procession. 

In  the  mean  time  M.  Lafitte  was  informed  of  the  reso- 
lution taken  at  St.  Cloud,  and  gave  M.  de  Forbin  Jan- 
son  a  passport  for  his  brother-in-law  the  Due  de  Mor- 
temart.    It  was  arranged  that  the  due  should  be  at  M. 

*  "  Laissez,  laissez,"  said  the  old  general  to  some  one  wishing  to 
conduct  his  steps;  "laissez,  laissez;  je  connais  tout  cela  mieux  que 
vous.-' 

C3 


58  REVOLUTION    OF     1830. 

Lafitte's  house  some  time  that  evening ;  unable  to  ob- 
tain the  new  ordonnances  from  the  king,  and  refused  a 
passport  from  the  dauphin,  M.  de  Mortemart  disap- 
pointed the  deputies,  who  expected  him,  and  this  event 
was  perhaps  the  most  important  one  of  the  three 
days.* 

It  was  on  this  night,  after  waiting  for  the  Due  de 
Mortemart  in  vain,  that  M.  Lafitte,  left  alone  with 
Messrs.  Thiers  and  Mignet,  took  the  first  of  those 
measures  which  led  to  the  election  of  the  present  mon- 
arch. Then  it  was  resolved  that  the  elder  branch  of 
the  Bourbons  should  be  given  up  to  those  who  were 
fearful  for  the  freedom,  and  the  younger  branch  adopted 
as  a  guarantee  to  those  who  were  fearful  for  the  tran- 
quillity, of  the  country ;  and  then  were  framed  the 
handbills,  placards,  and  proclamations  which,  appearing 
in  every  corner  of  Paris  the  following  morning,  di- 
rected and  fixed  the  public  opinion. 

The  morning  of  the  30th  began  with  two  proclam;.- 
tions  ;  the  one  from  the  provisional  government,  an- 
nouncing the  deliverance  of  Paris  to  the  people,  the 
other  from  General  Gerard,  offering  an  amnesty  to  the 
army  ;  at  this  moment  the  Due  de  Mortemart  arrived 
from  St.  Cloud,  with  the  ordonnances  that  he  should 
have  had  the  preceding  evening.  A  slowness  fatal  to 
the  old  monarchy  still  attended  him.f     M.  de  Sussy, 

*  Though  many  were  conlident  as  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the 
continued  struggle,  no  one  believed  it  over  at  this  time.  Troops,  il 
was  conceived,  would  march  upon  the  capital  in  all  directions.  Paris 
might  be  invested ;  its  brave  but  volatile  population  was  not  to  be  de- 
pended upon.  The  lesson  which  royalty  had  received  was  rude. 
The  repeal  of  the  ordonnances,  and  the  nomination  of  a  popular  admin- 
istration was  as  great  a  triumph  as  it  seemed  possible  to  achieve  with- 
out running  all  the  perils,  all  the  hazards,  and  all  the  horrors  of  civil 
war.  A  republic  was  dreaded ;  the  Due  d'Orleans  had  not  then  come 
forward ;  young  Napoleon  was  at  Vienna.  It  is  impossible  to  say  if 
the  Due  de  Mortemart  had  appeared  at  M.  Lafitte's  the  night  of  the 
29th,  whether  Charles  X.  might  not  stiJl  have  been  at  the  Tuileries. 

t  Monsieur  de  Mortemart,  fatigried  by  his  w^alk  (he  had  come  a 
roundabout  way  from  St.  Cloud),  disappointed  in  finding  M.  Lafitte  at 
his  own  house,  unable,  owing  to  the  barricades,  to  proceed  otherwise 
than  on  foot,  was  prevailed  upon  to  charge  M.  de  Sussy  with  the 
ordonnances  repealmg  those  of  the  25th,  and  M.  de  Sussy  proceeded 
with  them  to  the  Chamber. 


REVOLUTION     OF     1830.  6§ 

whom  he  charged  with  these  ordonnances,  was  not  at 
the  Chamber  so  soon  as  he  was  expected.  The  depu- 
ties, when  he  reached  it,  had  already  invited  the  pres- 
ent king  to  Paris.  M.  Thiers,  who  said,  "  Les  plus 
prompts  aujourd'hui  seront  les  plus  habiles,''^  had  already 
been  to  Neuilly,  and  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  Made- 
moiselle Adelaide  the  promise  that  she,  at  all  events 
(the  Due  d'Orleans  was  not  to  be  found),  would  ap- 
pear, if  necessary,  on  her  brother's  behalf.  When  M. 
de  Sussy  arrived,  then,  the  die  was  cast,  and  the  Cham- 
ber refused  to  acknowledge  the  sovereign  on  whose 
behalf  he  appeared.  Lafayette  and  the  provisional 
government  treated  his  mission  with  still  greater  disre- 
spect ;  and  such  was  the  feeling  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
that  M.  de  Puyraveau,  who  read  the  papers  that  M.  de 
Sussy  presented,  said,  in  answer,  "  That  the  French 
were  determined  not  to  have  another  royal  master,  and 
that  a  republic  was  better  than  the  government  called 
a  constitutional  one." 

Agitated  by  different  rumours — hearing  of  embassies 
from  St.  Cloud,  meetings  at  M.  Latitte's  and  at  the 
Chamber,  conferences  at  the  Hotel  de  Yille — the  peo- 
ple, always  suspicious,  began  to  murmur,  to  mutter  to- 
gether in  small  groups,  to  speak  of  treason,  of  ven- 
geance. An  event  was  only  wanting  to  awaken  into  a 
more  terrible  force  those  popular  elements  of  trouble 
which  it  was  so  necessary  to  lull  speedily  to  repose.* 
Celerity  was  every  thing,  inaction  was  the  utmost  dan- 
ger ;  not  a  moment  was  to  be  lost ;  the  Chamber  sent 
a  deputation  to  Neuilly  with  the  offer  of  the  "  lieu- 
tenance-generale."     Ic  was  at  night,  at  the  gate  of  his 


*  It  was  attempted  to  quiet  them  by  a  proclamation ;  and  a  procla 
mation  now  appeared,  in  which  the  Parisians  were  called  demi-godsj 
and  heroes  ;  "  Vive  la  France,  vive  le  peuple  de  Paris,  vive  la  liberte," 
said  the  p>.-ovisional  government,  and  the  people  were  less  dissatisfied 
than  before.  In  this  proclamation  Charles  X.  was,  for  the  first  time, 
declared  to  have  lost  his  throne ;  and  M.  Perier  refused  to  sign  it,  be- 
cause it  contained,  as  he  conceived,  an  act  of  authority  beyond  the 
power  with  which  the  provisional  or  municipal  government  were 
endowed. 


60  REVOLUTION  OF     iS30. 

park,*  by  the  pale  and  flickering  light  of  a  torch,  that 
the  Due  d'Orleans  read  the  communication  so  impor- 
tant to  his  family  and  to  France.  He  saw  the  crisis — 
he  saw  that  the  time,  long  perchance  looked  forward 
to,  was  arrived  ;  he  lost  not  an  instant :  he  set  off  im- 
mediately, and  on  foot,  to  Paris.  Nor  were  his  parti- 
sans idle.  On  all  the  walls  you, might  have  read, — 
"  Charles  ne  se  croit  pas  vaincu." — "  Le  Due  de 
Chartres  marche  au  secours  de  Paris  avec  son  regi- 
ment."— "  La  republique  nous  brouillerait  avec  I'Eu- 
rope." — "Le  Due  d'Orleans etait  aJemmapes." — "Le 
Due  d'Orleans  est  un  roi  citoyen,"  &c. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  at  Paris ;  agitation 
with  the  people,  indecision  with  the  republicans, 
— neither  courage,  energy,  nor  good  fortune  with  the 
royalists  ;  and  amid  all  suiTOunding  doubts,  difficulties, 
and  fears,  to  the  empty  throne  the  faction  Orleans 
wound  itself  ably  and  rapidly  along.  The  advice  of 
Marshal  Marmont  to  the  king  at  St.  Cloud  was,  "  Take 
your  troops  to  the  Loire ;  they  will  there  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  disaffection  ;  summon  the  Chambers  and 
the  '  corps  diplomatique'  to  your  place  of  residence  ; 
take  these  measures  immediately, — your  throne  is  yet 
secure."  The  king  hesitated — the  troops  deserted. 
The  few  moments  that  should  have  been  spent  in 
adopting  some  energetic  line  of  conduct  were  wasted 
in  a  violent  dispute  between  the  dauphin  and  the  Due 
de  Raguse.f  There  was  no  hope  where  there  was  no 
union,  no  conduct,  no  courage. 

We  are  arrived  at  the  31st. 

The  succeeding  events  of  the  revolution  are  rapid 
in   their    succession.     A.t   twelve    o'clock,   the   Due 


*  He  had  returned  to  Neuilly. 

t  The  Due  de  Raguse  published  an  order  of  the  day  to  the  troops, 
which,  by  inadvertence,  he  had  not  shown  to  the  Due  d'Angoul^me. 
This  order,  moreover,  was  contrary  to  the  dauphin's  opinions.  He 
was  furious,  rushed  upon  the  Due  de  Raguse,  and  even  wounded 
himself  in  wresting  his  sword  from  the  marshal's  side.  Charles  X. 
succeeded  in  procuring  mutual  apologies  ;  but  such  a  quarrel  at  such 
amoment  inspired  mistrust  among  all  parties,  and  filled  up  the  fataUty 
of  the  unfortunate  kind's  fortunes. 


REVOLUTION    OF     iS30.  61 

d'Orleans,  with  some  affected  coyness,  accepts  the 
*'  lieutenance-generale."  The  Chamber,  assembled  at 
one,  receives  his  royal  highness's  answer,  and  pub- 
lishes a  declaration  of  its  proceedings.*  Almost  im- 
mediately after  this,  the  new  lieutenant-general  on  horse- 
back, with  no  guards,  escorted  by  the  deputies,  visited 
the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The  crowds  who  lined  his  passage 
were  cold,  doubtful,  and  as  it  were  embarrassed.  They 
felt  they  had  not  been  consulted — they  did  not  know 
whether  they  had  been  deceived.  All  eyes  were 
turned  upon  the  Hotel  de  Ville — great  was  its  power 
at  that  moment,  and  solemn  v/as  the  pause  when 
Lafayette — the   picture    of    that   venerable    man,  the 

*  "  La  France  est  libre  :  le  pouvoir  absolu  levait  son  drapeaii : 
Pheroique  population  de  Paris  I'a  abattu.  Paris  attaque  a  fait 
triompher  par  les  armes  la  cause  sacree  qui  venait  de  trionipher  en 
vain  dans  les  elections.  Un  pouvoir  usurpateur  de  nos  droits,  per- 
turbateur  de  notre  repos,  menacjait  a-ia-fois  la  liberte  et  I'ordre  :  nous 
rentrons  en  possession  de  I'ordre  et  de  la  liberte.  Plus  de  crainte 
pour  les  droits  acquis,  plus  de  barri^re  entre  nous  et  les  droits  qui 
nous  manquent  encore. 

"  Un  gouvernement  qui,  sans  delai,  nous  garantisse  ces  biens,  est 
aujourd'hui  le  premier  besoin  de  la  patrie.  Franqais,  ceux  de  vos 
deputes  qui  se  trouvent  deja  a  Paris  se  sont  reunis,  et,  en  attendant 
I'intervention  reguliere  des  Chambres,  ils  ont  invite  un  Frangais  qui 
n'a  jamais  combattu  que  pour  la  France,  M.  le  Due  d'Orleans,  a 
exercer  les  fonctions  de  lieutenant-general  du  royaume.  Cest  a 
leurs  yeuxle  plus  sur  moyen  d'accomplir  promptement  par  la  paix  le 
succ^s  de  la  plus  legitime  defense. 

"  Le  Due  d'Orleans  est  devoue  a  la  cause  nationale  et  constitu- 
tionnelle.  'II  en  a  toujours  defendu  les  interets  et  professe  les 
principes.  11  respectera  nos  droits,  car  il  tiendra  de  nous  les  siens. 
Nous  nous  assurons  par  les  lois  toutes  les  garanties  necessaires  pour 
rendre  la  liberte  forte  et  durable ; 

"  Le  retablissement  de  la  garde  nationale  avec  I'intervention  des 
gardes  nationaux  dans  le  choix  des  officiers ; 

"  L'intervention  des  citoyensdans  la  formation  des  administrations 
departementales  et  municipales ; 

"  Le  jury  pour  les  d^lits  de  la  presse ;  la  responsabilit6  legalement 
organisee  des  ministres  etdes  agens  secondaires  de  1 'administration  ; 

"  L'etat  des  militaires  legalement  assure  ; 

"  La  reelection  des  d6putes  promus  a  des  fonctions  publiques ; 

"  Nous  donnerons  enfin  a  nos  institutions,  de  concert  avec  le  chef 
de  r^lat,  les  developpemens  dont  elles  ont  besoin. 

"  Frangais,  le  Due  d'Orleans  lui-m^.ne  a  deja  parle,  et  son  Ian- 
gage  est  celuiqui  convient  a  un  pays  libre  :  '  Les  Chambres  vont  se 
r6unir,'  nous  dit-il ;  '  elles  aviseront  aux  movens  d'assurer  le  r6gne 
des  lois  et  le  maintien  des  droits  de  la  nation. 

"La  charts  sera  desormais  une  verity." 
6 


62  RESOLUTION  or   1S30. 

arbiter  of  the  troubled  hour,  whom  Virgil  has  so  beau- 
tifully described — his  aged  head  crowned  with  the  char- 
acter of  seventy  years — appeared  in  the  same  balcony 
where  he  had  been  so  conspicuous  nearly  half  a  century 
before,  waving  in  one  hand  the  flag  of  the  old  republic, 
and  presenting  in  the  other  the  candidate  for  the  new 
monarchy.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  burst  out  the  loud, 
hearty,  and  long-resounding  shouts  of  a  joyous  and 
trusting  people ;  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  nation 
that  had  been  fighting  for  its  liberties,  and  the  party 
that  had  been  plotting  for  their  prince,  understood  one 
another,  and  felt  that  their  common  object  was  to  be 
found  in  their  common  union.  It  is  useless  to  dwell 
on  the  conversations  which  are  stated  to  have  taken 
place  on  this  day,  and  which  have  been  so  frequently 
recounted  and  disputed.  Their  wording  is  of  little 
import ;  their  spirit  could  not  be  very  different  from 
the  proclamation  published  at  the  same  period,  and 
which  said  nearly  all  that  the  wildest  demagogues 
could  desire.  But  who  wants  to  know  that  in  a  mo- 
ment of  popular  triumph  the  parties  investing  them- 
selves with  power  must  have  made  popular  profes- 


sions 


?* 


*  Conversation  of  M.  Lafayette  and  Louis  Philippe. — 
"  Vous  savez,  lui  dis-je,  que  je  suis  republicain,  et  que  je  regarde  la 
constitution  des  Etats-Unis  comma  la  plus  parfaite  qui  ait  jamais 
existe." — "  Je  pense  comme  vous,  repondit  le  Due  d'Orleans ;  il  est 
impossible  d'avoir  passe  deux  ans  en  Amerique,  et^  de  n'^tre  pas  de 
cet  avis ;  mais  croyez-vous,  dans  la  situation  de  la  France,  et  d'apr^s 
I'opinion  generale,  qu'il  nous  convienne  de  I'adopter  ?" — "  Non,  lui 
dis-je;  ce  qu'il  faut  aujourd'hui  au  peuple  Francjais,  c'est  un  trone 
populaire  entour6  d'institutions  Hpublkaines,  tout-a-fait  republi- 
caines." — "  C'est  bien  ainsique  je  I'entends,"  repartit  le  prince. 

Proclamation  of  General  Lafayette. — "La  reunion  des 
deputes  actuellement  a  Paris  vient  de  communiquer  au  general  en 
chef  la  resolution  qui,  dans  I'urgence  des  circonstances,  a  nomme 
M.  le  Due  d'Orleans  lieutenant-general  du  royaume.  Dans  trois 
jours  la  Chambre  sera  en  seance  reguli^re.  conformernent  au  mandat 
de  ses  commettants,  pour  s'oecuper  de  ses  devoirs  patriotiques, 
rendus  plus  importants  et  plus  etendus  encore  par  le  glorieux  ev^ne- 
ment  qui  vient  de  faire  rentrer  le  peuple  Francjais  dans  la  plenitude  de 
ses  imprescriptibles  droits.    Honneur  a  la  population  Parisienne ! 

"  C'est  alors  que  les  representans  des  colleges  electoraux,  honores 
de  I'assentiment  de  la  France  enti^re,  sauront  assurer  a  la  patrie,  pre- 
alablement  aux  considerations  et  aux  formes  seeondaires  de  gouverne- 
ment,  toutes  les  garanties  de  liberie,  d'egalite  et  d'ordre  public,  que 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  63 

The  Provisional  Government  was  now  superseded 
by  the  lieutenant-general.  We  are  come  to  the  1st 
of  August ;  it  was  a  Sunday.  The  weather  was 
beautiful ;  the  streets  were  crowded  with  that  idle 
populace  so  peculiarly  Parisian — the  churches  open, 
the  Quais  thronged,  and  the  people  dancing — and  every- 
where you  heard,  everywhere  you  saw  the  national 
colours — the  notes  of  the  too  famous  "  ga  ircC  swelling 
the  soft  breezes  of  a  luxurious  summer  evening — and 
all  Paris  seemed  one  large  family. 

"  Men  met  eacli  other  with  erected  look, 
The  steps  were  higher  which  they  took, 
Friends  to  congratulate  their  friends  made  haste, 
And  long  inveterate  foes  saluted  as  they  pass'd." 

Dryden's  Threnod.  Aug. 

The  1st  of  August  was  a  day  of  rest,  a  day  of 
Jubilee.  On  the  2d  of  August  came  the  abdication 
of  Charles  X.  and  of  the  dauphin.  On  the  3d 
the  Chambers  met,  and  the  lieutenant-general  opened 
them  with  a  speech.  On  the  4th  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  verified  the  powers  of  its  members,  and  the 
Chamber  of  Peers,  which  had  hitherto  kept  aloof, 
nominated  a  commission  to  reply  to  the  opening 
speech  of  the  lieutenant-general.  On  the  6th,  M.  C. 
Perier  was  named  president  of  the  Lower  Chamber, 


r^clament  la  nature  souveraine  de  nos  droits,  et  la  ferme  volonte  du 
peuple  Franqais. 

"  Deja  sous  le  gouvernement  d'origine  et  d'influences  etrang^res 
C[ui  vient  de  cesser,  grace  a  I'heroique,  rapide  et  populaire  effort  d'une 
juste  resistance  a  I'aggression  contre-revolutionnaire,  il  etait  reconnu 
que,  dans  la  s-ession  actuelle,  les  demandes  du  retablissement  d'ad- 
ministrations  61ectives,  communales  et  departementales,  la  formation 
des  gardes  nationales  de  France  sur  les  bases  de  la  loi  de  91 , 1'exten- 
sion  de  I'application  au  jury,  les  questions  relatives  a  la  loi  electorale, 
la  liberty  de  I'enseignement,  la  responsabilite,  devaient  etre  des  ob- 
jets  de  discussion  legislative,  prealables  a  tout  vote  de  subsides ;  k 
combien  plus  forte  raison  ces  garanties  et  tmites  celles  que  la  liberti  et 
rdfialitd  peuventreclamer  doiventelles  precedtr  la  concession  des  pou- 
voirs  definitifs  que  la  France  jugerait  a  propos  de  conferer  !  En  at- 
tendant, elle  sait  que  le  lieutenant-general  du  royaume,  appele  par 
la  Chambre,  fut  un  des  jeunes  patriotes  de  89,  un  des  premiers  g6n6- 
raux  qui  firent  triompher  le  drapeau  tri-colore.  Liberte,  6galit6  et 
ordre  public,  fiit  toujours  ma  devise,  je  lui  serai  fiddle." 


64  REVOLUTION    OF    1830. 

and  a  commission  was  appointed  to  consider  M.  Be- 
rard's  proposition  for  a  modification  of  the  Charta.  On 
the  7th,  the  Due  d'Orleans  was  invited  by  the  two 
Chambers  to  assume  the  crown  upon  such  conditions 
as  the  aUerations  in  the  Charta,  that  had  been  agreed 
to,  then  prescribed. 

"  I  receive  with  profound  emotion  the  offer  which 
you  present  to  me.  I  regard  it  as  the  expression  of 
the  national  will,  and  it  seems  to  me  conformable  to 
the  political  principles  which  I  have  expressed  all  my 
life.  Still,  filled  with  those  recollections  which  have 
always  made  me  shrink  from  the  idea  of  ascending  a 
throne, — free  from  ambition,  and  accustomnd  to  the 
peaceful  life  which  I  have  passed  in  my  family — I 
cannot  conceal  from  you  the  sentiments  which  agitate 
me  at  this  great  conjuncture.  But  there  is  one  senti- 
ment predominating  over  every  other — it  is  the  love  of 
my  country.  I  feel  what  that  sentiment  prescribes, 
and  I  shall  fulfil  its  commands." 

This  was  the  prince's  answer ;  and  on  the  9th, 
amid  peals  of  cannon,  and  the  loud  chant  of  the 
"  Marseillaise,"  the  French  people  accepted  Louis 
Philippe  as  King  of  the  French,  while  the  Bey  of  Titeri 
was  vowing  allegiance  to  Charles  X.,  "  the  great 
and  the  victorious." 

On  the  16th  of  August  this  unfortunate  monarch  em- 
barked at  Cherbourg.  On  the  30th  of  July  he  had 
left  St.  Cloud  ;  for  a  day  he  halted  at  Versailles.  He 
halted  there  amid  the  recollections  of  bygone  times ; 
every  tree  had  a  story  linked  with  far  distant  days ; 
and  melancholy  must  it  have  been  to  have  seen  him  as 
he  looked  fondly  over  those  stately  avenues — as  he  lin- 
gered (and  long,  his  attendants  say,  he  did  linger)  upon 
the  steps  of  that  royal  palace,  which  he  had  known  so 
early,  and  which  he  will  never  see  again.  When  he 
arrived  at  Rambouillet  it  was  night.  The  moon  threw 
a  ghastly  light  on  the  antique  tower,  and  into  the  dim 
court-yard  of  the  old  chateau,  as  bent  with  fatigue,  and 
worn  by  agitation,  the  old  king  descended  amid  the 
scanty  crowd,  collected,  less  from  affection  than  curi- 


REVOLUTION     OF    1830.  66 

osity.  Here  he  determined  to  abide.  The  great  body 
of  the  troops  were  bivouacked  in  the  woods  and  park, 
and  in  spite  of  many  desertions,  a  large  force  was  still 
devotedly  attached  to  the  royal  family. 

There  is  something  mysterious  in  the  transactions 
of  this  period.  In  a  letter,  published  by  the  dauphin 
(1st  of  August),  an  arrangement  is  spoken  of  as  being 
then  entered  into  with  the  Government  at  Paris.  Almost 
immediately  after  was  announced  the  abdication  of  the 
king  and  the  dauphin  in  favour  of  the  Due  de  Bor- 
deaux. This  certainly  seems  to  have  been  the  ar- 
rangement previously  alluded  to.  Whether  the  lieu- 
tenant-general or  the  government  at  Paris  had  held 
out  any  expectations,  which  they  never  had  the  wish, 
or  which,  if  they  had  the  wish,  they  had  not  the  power, 
to  realize,  must  long  remain  a  mystery,  because,  if  any 
communications  did  pass,  it  is  improbable  that  they 
should  have  been  of  that  direct  nature  which  leaves 
the  matter  capable  of  a  positive  decision.  But  certain 
it  is,  that  up  to  the  time  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans 
'accepted  the  throne,  Charles  X.  believed  that  it 
would  be  given  to  his  grandson.  Even  the  commis- 
sioners* did  not  combat  this  belief.  M.  Odillon  Barrot 
said — "  Votre  majeste  sentira  que  le  sang  verse  pour 
le  Due  de  Bordeaux,  servira  mal  sa  cause — il  ne  faut 
pas  que  son  nom,  qui  n'a  pas  ete  encore  compromis 
dans  nos  debats  civils,  se  mele  un  jour  a  des  souvenirs 
de  sang." 

Why  this  language,  from  a  man  so  sincere  as  M. 
Odillon  Barrot,  if  the  Due  de  Bordeaux  was  at  that 
time  out  of  the  question  ? 

This  was  on  the  3d ;  already  on  the  2d  the  com- 
missioners had  attempted  to  obtain  an  interview  with 
the  king  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  him  to  withdraw 
from  France,  or  at  all  events  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  Paris.  They  passed  through  the  camp ;  Charles 
X.  refused  to  see  them.  They  returned  to  Paris, 
and  their  return  was  the  signal  for  one  of  the  most  sin- 

*  M,  Schonen,  M.  Odillon  Barrot,  Marshal  Maison,  sent  by  the 
government. 

6* 


66  KE VOLUTION    OF    1830. 

gular  expeditions  by  which  a  monarch  was  ever  yet 
driven  from  his  dominions.  The  drum  beat  in  the 
streets :  the  still  excited  populace  collected : — "  Charles 
X.  is  coming  to  Paris  I" — "  Charles  X.  will  not 
go  away  from  Rambouillet ;"'  all  the  women  in 
accents  of  terror — all  the  little  boys  in  accents  of 
fury  screeched  out  the  name  of  "  Charles  X.," 
— "  to  Rambouillet ! — to  Rambouillet ! — after  Charles 
X.  to  Rambouillet !"  was  the  cry — as  on  a  no 
less  memorable  occasion  it  had  once  been — "  to  Ver- 
sailles /" — And  to  Rambouillet,  in  Carolines  and  hack- 
ney-coaches, in  carts,  in  cabriolets,  running,  riding, 
driving,  without  plan  as  without  preparation,  rushed 
the  population  of  Paris.  The  Commissicwers  preceded 
this  incongruous  cohort,  and  to-day  they  succeeded  in 
obtaining  an  interview  with  the  king.' 

Charles  X.,  even  as  a  young  man,  wanted  per- 
sonal courage.  He  had  been  accused  of  this  weak- 
ness in  the  court  of  Louis  XVI.  Years  had  not  invigo- 
rated his  spirit.  His  nerves  were  shaken,  and  his 
mind  unstnmg  by  the  quick  succession  of  adventures 
and  calamities  that  had  so  rapidly  followed  one  another 
during  the  last  few  days.  He  received  the  deputation 
in  a  state  of  great  agitation. 

"  QiCest  ce  quHls  vculent  1  me  tuerT  was  his  address 
to  Marshal  Maison. 

He  then  asked  advice  of  the  Due  de  Raguse.  What 
can  you  say  to  a  man  who  at  the  head  of  a  gallant 
army  asks  what  he  should  do  ? 

There  were  that  day  at  Rambouillet  twelve  thou- 
sand infantry,  three  thousand  five  hundred  cavalry,  and 
forty  pieces  of  cannon.  The  Royal  Guards  were  on 
foot,  at  the  head  of  their  horses,  one  hand  on  their  pis- 
tols, one  foot  ready  to  put  into  their  stirrups  !  A  prince 
of  courage,  wisdom,  and  resolution  might  still  have 
extricated  himself  from  the  difficulties  surrounding 
Charles  X. ;  but  in  these  difficulties  such  a  prince 
would  never  have  been  involved.  Alarmed  by  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  numbers  of  the  approaching  multi- 
tude ;  fatigued  with  the  toil  of  thinking  and  planning 


REVOLUTION    OF     1830.  67 

which  he  had  already  undergone ;  and  incapable  of  a 
new  mental  effort  to  meet  the  new  crisis  ;  flattering 
himself  that  the  Due  de  Bordeaux  would  still,  as  the 
best  political  combination,  be  named  to  the  throne ; 
conscious  that  blood  spilled  even  in  victory  might  en- 
danger the  peaceful  establishment  of  this  prince,  in 
whose  favour  he  had  himself  already  abdicated ;  swayed 
in  some  degree,  doubtless,  by  these  considerations,  but 
urged  more  especially  by  his  fears  and  his  irresolu- 
tions, Charles  threw  away  the  sword  where  others 
might  have  thrown  away  the  scabbard,  and  resigned 
himself  quietly  to  the  destiny  which  doomed  his  exile. 
The  soldiers  of  the  hackney-coaches  returned  to  Paris, 
and  the  late  'ling  of  France  set  out  for  Maintenon, 
where,  reserving  a  military  escort,  he  bade  adieu  to 
the  rest  of  his  army. 

His  journey  was  now  made  slowly,  and  under  the 
delusion  that  all  France  would  yet  rise  in  his  favour. 
Betrayed,  and  left  by  many  of  his  courtiers,  his  hopes 
remained  by  him  to  the  last ;  and  perhaps  still  remain, 
alone  faithful  in  sorrow  and  in  exile. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1830. 
IV. 

The  two  parties  among  the  Royalists  and  the  Liberals — The  wishes 
and  ideas  of  each — Young  Napoleon  and  a  republic,  or  Henry  V. 
and  the  monarchy  the  two  best  combinations — Reasons  why  not 
adopted — Having  formed  the  existing  government,  it  is  wise  to 
maintain  it — Astonishment  to  the  hostility  shown  by  those  who 
put  the  present  king  on  the  throne  to  the  natural  consequences  of 
his  accession — What  Louis  Phdippe's  system  must  be — Louis 
Philippe  named  Philippe  I.  and  not  Philippe  V. — Triumph  over 
the  more  moderate  party — Constitutional  changes  caused  by  the 
revolution. 

To  any  one  who  has  followed  the  events  of  this 
revolution,  there  will  seem  to  have  been  on  the  side 
of  the  people,  as  on  the  side  of  the  king,  two  factions. 


6S  REVIEW    OF    THE 

The  Royalists  were  divided  into  the  friends  cf  the 
ordonnances  and  the  ministry,  and  the  friends  of  the 
monarchy  without  the  ordonnances. 

The  liberal  deputies  also  were  divided.  There 
were  those  who,  without  any  personal  affection  for  the 
reigning  family,  wished  for  the  old  form  of  govern- 
ment, popularly  administered  (M.  Guizot  and  M.  Sebas 
tiani).  There  were  those  (M.  Latitte,  Laborde,  Mau- 
guin*)  who  wished  for  a  new  dynasty  and  new  insti- 
tutions. M.  C.  Perier  seems  to  have  been  between 
the  two  parties,  and  General  Lafayette  to  have  gone 
beyond  them  both.  To  M.  Guizot,  and  those  who 
thought  like  M.  Guizot,  Henry  V.  ought  to  have  been 
more  acceptable  than  the  Due  d'Orleans — by  M.  Lafitte 
the  Due  d'Orleans,  even  if  not  personally  recommended, 
would  have  been  preferred  to  Henry  V. — To  M.  C. 
Perier  the  claims  of  the  one,  whom  circumstances 
most  favoured,  were  likely  to  appear  the  best — To  M. 
de  Lafayette  the  American  republic  was  the  dream  of 
a  long  life. 

In  the  nation,  if  it  could  have  been  polled,  the  liberal 
nobility  would  probably  have  been  for  Henry  V.  ;  the 
bourgeoisie  for  the  Due  d'Orleans  ;  the  old  army  for 
young  Napoleon ;  the  masses  for  a  republic.  If  the 
Due  d'Orleans  was  selected,  it  was  because,  while  his 
accession  promised  the  least  to  any  particular  party,  it 
promised  something  to  all,  and  was  least  likely  to  offend 
any  one  party.  "The  multitudes  would  have  been 
passionately  opposed,"  say  many,  "  to  the  legitimate 
line  of  the  family  they  had  been  fighting  against.' 
The  army  would  have  despised,  and  the  bourgeoisie 
dreaded  the  red  cap,  which  had  presided  over  the  con- 
fiscations and  proscriptions  of  the  Comite  de  Salut  Pub- 
lique.  M.  Guizot  and  his  friends  accepted  the  Due 
d'Orleans  as  a  Bourbon  ;  M.  Lafitte  and  M.  Mauguin 
as  a  member  of  the  opposition  during  the  time  of  the 
Bourbons ;  General  Lafayette  as  the  soldier  of  Jem- 
mapes,  as  the  aid-de-camp  of  Dumourier.     Besides, 

*  It  is  these  two  parties  that  have  formed  the  government  and  the 
opposition  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign. 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  69 

Louis  Philippe  was  the  first  person  proposed,  when 
everybody  was  uncertain.  "  Take  the  Duke  of  Orleans 
for  your  king,"  said  M.  Lafitte.  "Liberty  will  be 
satisfied  with  the  sacrifice  of  legitimacy !  Order  will 
thank  you  for  saving  it  from  Robespierre  !  England, 
iu  your  revolution,  will  recognise  her  own !" 

All  declared  against  Charles  X.  None  spoke  of 
young  Napoleon ;  none  of  Henry  V. ;  and  yet,  if 
circumstances  had  favoured,  a  government  might  per- 
haps have  been  formed  under  the  sanction  of  either 
of  these  names,  more  popular  and  more  strong  than  the 
one  which  was  adopted.  The  Legitimate  Monarchy 
and  Henry  V.  ;  the  Republic  and  young  Napoleon ; 
these  (I  venture  the  opinion  as  an  historical  specula- 
tion) would  have  been  the  two  great  and  most  reason- 
able alternatives. 

For  the  legitimate  monarchy  there  was  the  past ; 
for  a  republic  the  future.  The  claims  of  the  one 
were  in  the  tombs  of  St.  Denys  ;  it  was  sanctioned  by 
time,  and  it  promised  repose.  A  desire  for  new  things 
could  alone  justify  the  pretensions  of  the  other ;  and 
its  existence  could  only  have  been  an  existence  of 
action  and  glory,  invasion,  defence,  conquest.  As  for 
a  republic,  with  Lafayette  it  would  have  been  the 
vision  of  an  hour — for  the  title  of  a  republic  would  have 
been  a  declaration  of  war ;  and  if  war  were  to  ensue, 
what  name  but  that  of  "  Napoleon"  had  a  military 
prestige  1 

Nor  had  young  Bonaparte  without  a  republic  any 
chance  of  success.  The  soldier  of  France  would  have 
rallied  round  his  cause — the  citizen  of  France  would 
have  shrunk  from  it.  A  name  possessed  by  one,  a  boy 
in  the  Austrian  capital,  was  not  alone  a  sufficient  basis 
for  a  government.  If  France  were  desirous  of  throw- 
ing herself  at  once  into  a  new  position,  of  braving 
Europe,  and  defying  the  propagande  in  hand,  the 
legions  of  the  Holy  Alliance — the  young  Napoleon, 
first  consul  of  a  military  republic,  would,  I  say,  have 
aroused  and  united  all  the  energies  demanded  for  this 
daring  career.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  revolution 
22 


70  nfc.VIE\V    OF    THE 

was  a  combat  for  what  had  been  obtained  by  the  Charta, 
and  not  for  a  new  system  that  was  to  succeed  the 
Restoration  ; — if  the  internal  policy  of  France  was  to 
be  conservation,  the  external  policy  peace  ;  if  mon- 
archy was  to  be  preserved  and  royalty  respected,  it 
was  better  to  keep  a  crown  that  nine  centuries  had 
hallowed,  and  to  preserve  to  majesty  its  history  and  its 
decorations.  Tranquillity  and  the  past  with  Henry 
V. — agitation  and  the  future  with  young  Napoleon — 
these,  I  repeat,  were  the  two  great  and  complete  ideas 
between  which  the  people,  if  they  could  then  have  rea- 
soned with  the  cool  philosophy  with  which  we  reason 
now,  would  have  chosen  after  the  combat  of  July. 
But  in  times  of  trouble  and  intrigue,  it  is  not  one  great 
idea  that  strikes  us  with  force  ;  we  bend  beneath 
a  thousand  little  circumstances  and  considerations. 
Besides,  though  I  have  conjecturally  united  the  young 
Bonaparte  with  a  republic,  as  the  best  combination, 
we  must  not  forget  that  at  the  time  of  the  revolution, 
those  who  thought  of  Napoleon  thought  of  the  empire ; 
those  who  thought  of  a  republic  thought  of  Lafayette. 
The  people,  moreover,  still  saw  in  Henry  V.  the 
shadow  of  the  old  "  regime.'*  A  long  array  of  peers 
and  pensions,  of  guards  and  tabourets,  stood  between 
him  and  them.  They  had  been  fighting  to  the  cry  of 
"  a  has  les  Bourbons,"  and  the  blood  was  yet  dripping 
from  their  clothes  which  had  been  shed  by  the  sol- 
diers of  legitimacy. 

But  might  not  a  liberal  regency  have  been  named  ? 
Was  not  Louis  Philippe  himself  a  Bourbon  ?  And  is 
it  not  just  possible  that  the  same  people  who  bound  up 
the  wounds  of  the  Swiss  would  have  felt  pity  for  the 
innocence  of  a  child  ?  Charles  X.  at  the  head  of 
his  guards,  the  Duchesse  de  Berri  with  the  Due  de 
Bordeaux  in  her  arms,  might  at  two  different  moments 
have  changed  the  destinies  of  France.  But  the  blood 
of  the  grand  constable  was  frozen  in  the  veins  of  his 
descendant ;  the  heroine  of  La  Vendee  was  guarded  in 
her  chamber  ;  the  religion  of  legitimacy  passed  away 
when  he  who  wore  the  crown  of  Henry  IV.  had  neither 


REVOLUTION    OF    1830.  71 

his  heart  nor  his  sword ;  and  an  army  of  omnibuses 
dispersed  the  heroes  who  had  gathered  round  the 
oriflamme  of  St.  Louis. 

But  whatever  might  have  been  best  under  possible 
circumstances,  I  am  by  no  means  surprised  at  what 
took  place  under  existing  ones.     Nay,  more  ;  whatever 
government  it  might  have  been  advisable  to  form  for 
France  in  1830,  as  a  liberal  and  rational  Frenchman, 
I  should  be  anxious,  in  1834,  to  maintain  the  govern- 
ment that  is ; — liberty  cannot  exist  without  stability — 
it  cannot  exist  under  perpetual  and  violent  changes  ; 
and  there  are  some  cases  where  it  is  wise  for  a  people 
to  preserve  even  many  evils  in  order  to  acquire  the 
habit  so  necessary  for  all  social  purposes,  of  preserving 
something.     They,  I  say,  who,  when  every  thing  was 
to  form  four  years  ago,  might  wisely  have  been  repub- 
licans or  legitimists — cannot  wisely  be  so  now — when 
a  government  is  constituted,  and  can  only  be  upset  by 
a  new  and  more  terrible  revolution,  of  which  they  could 
neither  direct  the  course  nor  predict  the  consequences. 
Moreover,  the  government  of  Louis  Philippe  was,  if 
not  the  strongest,  perhaps  the  easiest  and  safest  that 
could  have  been  adopted ;  and  1  own  that  what  most 
surprises  me  is,  not  that  the  French  should  have  chosen 
the  government,  but  that,  now  they  have  chosen  it,  they 
should  be  so  hostile  to  their  choice.     They  seem  to 
have  thought  that  because  the  present  king  would  owe 
his  situation  to  the  popular  voice,  he  would  always 
concede  to  popular  opinion.     If  this  was  their  theory, 
was  it  a  wise  one  ?     Do  not  we  know  that  every  man 
is  under  the  influence,  not  of  the  circumstances  which 
placed  him  in  a  particular  station,  but  of  the  circum- 
stances resulting  from  the  situation  in  which  he  is 
placed.     Give  a  man  rank  and  power,  he  will  endeav- 
our to  preserve  that  rank  and  power,  it  matters  not 
how  he  obtained  it.     If  there  be  in  his  origin  difficul- 
ties to  overcome,  it  is  to  his  origin  that  he  will  be  per- 
petually opposed.     The  veriest  schoolboy  in  politics 
and  in  history  might  see  at  once,  that  the  life  of  a 
prince  sprimg  from  a  popular  convulsion,  would  be 


72     REVIEW  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1830. 

passed  in  struggling  against  popular  concessions. 
Here  he  may  do  well  to  yield,  there  to  resist ;  but  to 
resist  he  will  somewhere  be  obliged,  to  yield  he  will 
always  be  required.  The  nation  will  be  imruly  under 
him,  and  you  must  govern  an  unruly  nation  as,  if  you 
are  a  skilful  rider,  you  will  govern  an  unruly  horse  ; 
you  will  not  dare  to  lay  the  reins  upon  his  neck,  but 
as  you  pat  his  crest  you  will  play  with  his  bridle  ;  if 
you  give  him  his  head,  or  if  you  pull  at  his  mouth,  it 
is  neither  force  nor  fear  that  will  restrain  him  ;  he  will 
run  away  wath  you. 

The  system  of  the  present  king  of  the  French  must 
be  a  system  of  repression,  for  the  expectations  which 
he  excited  are  extravagant :  but  it  may  be  a  system  of 
granting  much,  in  order  to  obtain  the  power  of  refusing 
more  :  if  he  refuse  every  thing,  if  he  pull  too  hard — 
but — I  am  about  to  recur  to  my  simile  of  the  unruly 
horse. 

It  now  only  remains  to  me  to  say — that  in  the  two 
questions  which  arose  respecting  the  throne,  first,  whe- 
ther it  should  be  declared  vacant  on  account  of  the 
absence  of  the  family  of  Charles  the  Tenth ;  secondlly, 
whether  Louis  Philippe  should  fill  it  as  Philip  Fifth 
(thus  connecting  the  old  monarchy  with  the  new)  or  as 
Philippe  the  First — a  negative  was  given  to  the  more 
moderate  party,  and  so  far  the  commencement  of  ano- 
ther era  was  undoubtedly  proclaimed.  A  reference  to 
the  charta  as  it  was*  and  as  it  is,  forms  the  best  con- 
clusion to  this  part  of  my  work. 

♦  See  Appendix. 


THE    STATE  OF  PARTIES  SINCE  THE 
REVOLUTION. 

Two  parties  during  the  Three  Days — A  third  party — Natural  conse- 
quences of  their  union — In  order  to  understand,  the  policy  of  the 
present  government,  we  must  perpetually  refer  to  the  policy  which 
presided  over  its  creation — In  creating  the  government,  the  French 
should  have  considered  that  its  course  was  prescribed  for  at  least 
ten  years — What  the  present  King's  government  was  likely  to  do, 
what  it  was  not  likely  to  do — Its  policy — The  persons  who  can 
best  maintain  it  on  that  policy — The  Doctrinaires — Ministry  of 
Lafitte,  of  M.  Perier,  of  Due  de  Broglie — Of  Soult,  of  Gerard — 
M.  Thiers — His  character — He  the  best  person  to  maintain  the 
present  government — What  are  the  difficulties  in  maintaining  it  ? 
— Its  necessary  unpopularity — The  dangers  of  that  unpopularity — 
Its  safety  in  its  gaining  time. 

Having  carried  the  political  events  of  France  down 
from  the  first  to  the  second  revolution,  I  would  now 
take  a  brief  view  of  the  condition  of  the  new  monarchy, 
and  of  the  state  of  the  parties  which  have  existed  un- 
der it ;  reserving  to  myself  the  opportunity  of  return- 
ing to  the  subject,  when,  having  made  more  familiar 
to  the  reader  the  manners,  the  character,  the  influ- 
ences, the  institutions,  and  the  men  of  this  country,  I 
may  take  a  broader,  a  bolder,  and  a  more  satisfactory 
view  of  its  future  destiny. 

It  is  evident  from  what  I  have  already  said,  that  the 
revolution  from  the  first  of  the  three  days  contained 
two  parties — those  who  felt  strongly,  and  those  who 
reasoned  calmly.  The  first  joined  it  with  the  desire 
to  overthrow  a  tyrannical  government,  the  second  with 
the  hope  to  prevent  present  confusion.  The  first, 
while  the  conflict  was  still  uncertain,  was  for  declar- 
ing the  ordonnances  illegal,  and  placing  themselves  at 
the  head  of  the  people  ;  while  the  second  were  for 
renouncing  a  resistance  by  force,  and  for  treating  with 
Charles  X.     So,  after  the  treaty  of  Rambouillet,  the 


74  THE     STATE    OF    PARTIES 

one  was  for  Philippe  I.,  the  other  for  Philippe  V.  The 
one  for  declaring  the  throne  vacant  by  the  departure  of 
the  elder  branch  of  the  Bourbons,  the  other  for  filling 
it  by  the  choice  of  the  people. 

The  natural  bent  of  these  two  parties  would  have  led 
them  to  diverge  even  wider  than  they  did.  The  en- 
thusiasts for  liberty  would  have  taken  the  republic — 
the  advocates  of  order  would  willingly  have  declared 
for  Henry  V.  But  there  was  a  third  party — the  per- 
sonal party  of  the  Due  d'Orleans,  which  appealed  to 
the  sympathies  of  the  republicans — to  the  ideas  of  the 
legitimists.  To  the  first  it  said,  I  fought  with  you  in 
the  days  of  July,  and  I  propose  to  you  the  soldier  of 
Jemmapes.  To  the  second  it  said,  the  Due  d'Or- 
leans is  a  Bourbon,  and  remember  the  revolution  of 
1788.  In  this  manner  the  revolution  which  had  been 
commenced  and  continued  without  a  plan,  was  consti- 
tuted and  confirmed  with  one. 

Its  natural  consequences  were  vast  concessions  to 
popular  opinion  in  the  moment  of  passion.  The  tri- 
umph of  the  party  in  favour  of  order  and  tranquillity, 
when  tranquillity  and  order  were  restored.  And  lastly 
— since  in  order  to  overthrow  the  former  government 
the  personal  friends  of  the  Due  d'Orleans  had  been 
obliged  to  side  rather  with  those  who  were  for  destroy- 
ing than  with  those  who  were  conserving — they  would, 
when  the  principles  of  the  present  reign  became  con- 
servative, be  obliged  to  separate,  either  from  their  party 
or  their  patron. 

In  order  to  have  a  proper  idea  of  the  present 
king's  policy,  it  is  necessary  to  be  perpetually  refer- 
ring to  the  policy  by  which  his  election  was  dic- 
tated. Very  few  of  the  French  understand  their  own 
revolution.  They  cry  out  against  the  "juste  milieu." 
Their  revolution,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  "  juste 
milieu."  Louis  Philippe  was  the  "  juste  milieu.'' 
If  they  had  expected,  through  peaceable  representa- 
tions, the  respect,  the  attention,  the  confidence  of  the 
despotic  governments  of  Europe,  they  should  not 
have  taken  Louis  Philippe :  if  they  had  expected  war 


SINCE    THK    HEVOLUriON.  /O 

With  those  governments,  a  reign  of  glory  and  action, 
they  should  not  have  taken  Louis  Philippe.  If  they 
had  expected  from  the  crown  the  continued  perpetual 
concession  of  popular  rights,  they  should  not  have  taken 
Louis  Philippe ;  for  they  should  not  have  taken  a  man 
with  the  passions  and  the  ambition  of  a  man.  If  they 
had  expected  tranquillity  in  the  South  of  France, — 
submission  in  La  Vendee  on  the  one  hand — or  an  ab- 
horrence to  hereditary  rights,  and  a  detestation  of  the 
royal  name  of  France  on  the  other, — they  should  not 
have  taken  Louis  Philippe.  Directly  they  chose  their 
sovereign,  they  ought  to  have  considered  that  they  had 
traced,  for  ten  years  at  least,  the  direction  of  their  revo- 
lution. They  had  chosen  the  Due  d'Orleans  to  sat- 
isfy those  who  were  against  the  family  of  Charles  X. 
They  had  chosen  a  Bourbon,  in  order  to  reconcile  the 
friends  of  legitimate  succession  ;  they  had  chosen  a 
monarchy,  in  order  to  pacify  those  who  were  afraid  of 
a  republic  ;  they  had  made  that  monarchy  the  com- 
mencement of  a  new  era,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  repub- 
licans ;  and  more  than  all,  they  had  chosen  peace  in 
the  selection  they  had  made,  and  evinced  a  dislike,  if 
not  a  fear,  of  war; — and  yet  there  is  not  one  of  the 
parties  to  whom  Louis  Philippe  was  a  compromise, 
that  has  not  alternately  claimed  the  triumph  of  its  own 
opinions. 

Was  Louis  Philippe's  government  the  one  likely  to 
allow  the  family  at  Holyrood  to  enter  France  ?  Was 
Louis  Philippe's  government  the  one  to  pull  down  from 
the  public  edifices  the  fleurs-de-lis?  Was  Louis 
Philippe's  government  the  one  likely  to  march  hand-in- 
hand  with  the  Americo-republican  Lafayette?  And 
was  Louis  Philippe's  government  the  one  best  calcu- 
lated to  remonstrate  effectually  with  the  Emperor  of 
Russia,  or  to  march  with  the  tri-colour  flying,  in 
favour  of  the  Poles  ?  Was  Louis  Philippe's  govern- 
ment the  one  which  would  command  the  ear  of  Prince 
Metternich — or  Louis  Philippe's  the  name  that  would 
speak  to  the  Austrian  veterans  of  Austerlitz  and  Ma- 
rengo !  No ;  Louis  Philippe's  government  was  a  gov* 
D2 


76  THE    STATE    OF    PARTIES 

eminent  of  peace — of  peace  to  be  obtained  by  an  un- 
pretending posture  abroad,  by  a  sober,  quiet  position 
at  home.  It  was  the  government  of  the  ^^  juste  milieu^''' 
as  Louis  Philippe  himself  was  the  "juste  milieu"  be- 
tween a  variety  of  thoughts  and  things.  It  was  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  "  bourgeoisie,"  in  which  we  wero 
neither  to  look  for  the  chivalry  of  ancient  France,  noi 
the  turbulent  energy  of  the  Republic,  nor  the  military 
greatness  of  the  empire,  nor  the  hereditary  majesty 
of  the  Restoration. 

It  was  a  government  of  the  "  bourgeoisie"  in  action 
as  in  ideas,  of  that  order  which  is  least  susceptible  to 
imaginative  impressions ;  the  most  likely  to  be  con- 
ducted by  material  interests  ;  of  that  class  which  looks 
to  the  enjoyment  of  the  ordinary  rights  and  pursuits 
of  life ;  and  which  occupies  itself  the  least  with  the 
goveramental  theories  and  the  state  of  Europe  ;  of  that 
class  which,  in  the  present  state  of  civilization,  forms 
the  bulk  of  every  nation,  but  rarely  the  force  ;  given, 
too  much,  in  every  crisis,  to  cry,  like  the  Italian  mar- 
quis when  hoisted  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Carbonari, 
and  proclaimed  chief  of  the  Piedmontese  revolution, 
"  Faites  ce  que  vous  voulez,  messieurs  ;  mais,  ne  me 
chiffonez  pas." 

It  was  this  feeling  which  created  the  first  reluctance 
to  fire  upon  the  insurgents  of  June,  and  produced,  after 
it  was  put  down,  the  cry  of  "  Vive  I'etat  de  siege  !"  It 
was  this  feeling  which,  on  a  late  occasion,  sanctioned 
the  barbarities  of  the  troops,  and  permitted  an  innocent 
family  to  be  butchered  in  cold  blood,  because  some- 
body, in  somebody's  part  of  the  building  they  inhab- 
ited, had  disturbed  the  order  so  beloved  by  the  bour- 
geois of  Paris. 

Such  is  the  government  of  Louis  Philippe ;  such,  if 
he  remain,  must  his  government  remain  ;  a  government 
of  order  and  peace.  If  a  foreign  war  break  out,  there 
is  the  chance  of  a  military  republic  ;  if  internal  agita- 
tion long  continue,  there  is  a  chance  for  the  Bona- 
partes  ;  there  is  even  a  chance  of  Henry  V.  The 
sovereign's   policy   is   distinctly   traced,  nor  can  he 


SINCE    THE    REVOLUTION.  77 

govern  by  any  other  party  than  that  which,  possessing 
the  ideas  conformable  to  his  origin,  is  alone  compatible 
with  his  existence.  They  who  exclaim  against  the 
policy  which  is  the  destiny  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign, 
exclaim  against  Louis  Philippe  himself. 

Now  who  are  the  men  by  whom  the  inevitable  policy 
of  Louis  Philippe  can  best  be  supported  ? 

The  principles  of  those  who  are  placed  at  the  head 
of  a  government,  more  especially  when  that  govern- 
ment is  a  government  of  principle,  and  has  a  peculiar 
line  traced  out  for  it,  is  no  doubt  an  object  of  great 
importance  ;  but  neither  must  we  forget  that  to  individ- 
uals and  to  names  there  is  also  an  importance  which 
it  is  never  wise  wholly  to  despise  or  to  neglect. 

The  cry  of  "  a  bas  les  Je suites"  was  fatal  to  the 
ministry  of  Polignac.  The  cry  of  "  a  bas  le  doctri- 
naires" was  raised  against  the  administration  of  the 
Due  de  Broglie.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  doctrinaries  ?" 
is  the  question  that  a  foreigner  is  perpetually  asking  in 
France,  and  it  is  very  rare  indeed  that  he  gets  an 
answer  from  which  much  can  be  understood. 

During  the  time  of  the  "  Restoration"  there  was  a 
small  party  in  France,  consisting  chiefly  of  young  men, 
affecting  to  consider  the  Due  de  Broglie  as  their  head, 
and  conducting  a  paper  called  "The  Globe."  M. 
Guizot  was  their  historian,  M.  Cousin  their  philoso- 
pher. This  party  was  a  party  of  system,  which  lay- 
ing down  certain  ideas  as  the  general  basis  of  all  good 
government,  admitted  few  exceptions  to  its  peculiar 
plan,  and  allowing  little  for  time  and  circumstances, 
measured  by  a  fixed  rule  the  goodness  or  badness  of 
all  that  was  meditated  or  proposed.  It  was  not  a 
school  that  answered  to  that  of  our  utilitarians,  since 
it  supported  the  intrinsic  merit  or  demerit  of  actions, 
and  defended  virtues  altogether  independent  of  utility. 
Its  metaphysics  were  German,  its  politics  English.  It 
combated  the  government  of  the  time  by  appeals  to 
the  reason — and  never  by  appeals  to  the  passions — 
and  from  the  kind  of  doctoral  tone  in  which  it  lectured 
the  public,  obtained  the  name,  at  that  time  popular,  of 
'*  Doctrinaires."  ^ 


78  THE    STATE    OF    PARTIES 

The  great  misfortune  of  this  party  was  to  have  ac- 
cepted power  directly  after  the  days  of  July,  when 
the  minds  of  men  were  in  that  state  of  agitation  which 
made  it  necessary  to  govern  them  rather  through  their 
passions  and  their  imagination  than  through  their  judg- 
ment— when  there  was  something  more  than  absurd  in 
speaking  with  book-learned  pedantry  of  a  liberty  which 
had  been  conquered  in  a  moment  of  drunken  enthusi- 
asm; and  measuring  out  the  refinements  of  legisla- 
tion to  a  mob  who  had  conquered  with  the  barricade 
and  the  bayonet.  The  name  which  had  been  given  as 
one  of  respect  became  then  a  by-word  of  ridicule  and 
reproach ;  and  for  having  at  an  unfavourable  moment 
wished  to  govern  the  nation  by  its  reason,  the  Doctri- 
naires lost  all  their  hold  upon  its  sympathies. 

The  cabinet  of  M.  Lafitte  failed  through  want  of  ad- 
ministrative skill ;  and  the  nation,  placed  between  a 
bankruptcy  and  a  change  of  ministers,  cheerfully  ac- 
cepted his  resignation.  The  administration  of  M.  C. 
Perier,  unwise  and  impolitic  in  many  respects,  was 
the  administration  which,  more  than  any  other,  repre- 
sented the  destiny  and  the  genius  of  the  existing  gov- 
ernment ;  and  this  was  so  generally  felt  and  acknow- 
ledged, that  the  overthrow  of  the  minister  and  the 
overthrow  of  the  monarch  were  considered  almost 
synonymous.  The  system  was  a  weak  one,  but  it 
was  sustained  by  a  man  of  energy  and  force. 

At  Monsieur  Perier's  death  it  was  necessary  to 
maintain,  and  difficult  to  avoid  changing,  the  policy  he 
had  pursued.  The  three  alternatives  were  : — M.  Du- 
pin  ;  the  Due  de  Broglie  ;  M.  Odilon  Barrot.  But  M. 
Dupin  would  only  enter  on  the  condition  of  forming 
his  own  cabinet ;  and  the  discontent,  or  retreat,  or  ex- 
pulsion of  M.  Perier's  friends,  would  necessarily  be 
taken,  for  the  time  at  least,  as  the  sign  of  that  change 
which  was  to  be  avoided.  M.  Odilon  Barrot  could  not 
enter  without  the  real  change  of  which  M.  Dupin 
would  have  been  the  appearance.  The  preference 
then  was  given,  not  without  some  intrigues,  to  the  Due 
de  Broglie. 


SINCE    THE     REVOLUTION.  70 

But  the  Due  de  Broglie,  though  a  person  of  great 
knowledge,  and  indeed  of  great  ability,  was  too  much 
of  the  "  grand  seigneur,"  and  too  much  of  the  "  s^a- 
vant,"  to  conduct  an  administration  which  was  to  be 
perpetually  dealing  with  the  casual  views,  and  the 
passing  passions,  which  a  representative  system  will 
be  perpetually  bringing  into  play. 

A  man  of  views,  he  was  not  a  man  of  expedients. 
He  could  plan  his  voyage,  but  he  could  not  set  his 
sails  quick  enough  to  catch  the  favouring  shifts  of 
every  breeze.  He  could  see  the  port  he  was  to  arrive 
at,  but  he  could  not  steer  with  sufficient  adroitness 
through  the  creeks,  and  by  the  rocks  near  which  the 
course  of  the  French  government  is  destined  for  many 
years  to  run. 

He  was  succeeded  nominally  by  Marechal  Soult, 
and  Marechal  Soult  is  succeeded  nominally  by  Marechal 
Gerard ;  but  M.  Thiers  is  the  person  who,  as  well  for 
his  ability  as  his  influence,  is  really  to  be  considered 
the  chief  of  the  present  ministry.*  If  any  man  can 
maintain  the  existing  monarchy,  and  the  system  of  the 
existing  monarchy,  it  is  M.  Thiers.  Sprung  from  the 
revolution  of  July,  he  knows  its  men  ;  he  understands 
its  passions ;  he  has  no  prejudices  separate  from  it. 
With  an  intelligence  which  must  give  him  a  general 
plan  for  his  career,  he  has  a  peculiar  quickness  for 
seeing,  a  peculiar  facility  for  adopting  and  adapting  him- 
self to  the  events  of  the  day.  He  looks  around  him  with 
at  once  the  eyes  of  the  journalist  and  the  statesman ;  he 
projects  for  distant  times  ;  he  acts  for  the  present ;  and, 
instead  of  despising,  profits  by  the  daily  prejudice  and 
opinion.  Ready,  bold,  adventurous ;  revolving  great 
schemes,  and  possessing  an  extraordinary  facility  in 
elucidating  and  arranging  intricate  details,  carrying  to 
the  tribune  what  is  remarkable  in  his  character ;  never 
hesitating  for  an  argument  or  a  word,  but  seizing  the 
first  that  occurs,  and  caring  less  for  its  accuracy  than 
Its  force  ;  supporting  his  party  or  his  principle  with  a 

*  The  king  himself  is  no  inconsiderable  person  in  his  own  cabinet 


80  THE    STATE    OF    PARTIES 

popular  on  dit ;  attacked  on  all  sides,  and  not  troubling 
himself  with  a  defence,  but  carelessly  attacking ;  an 
excellent  parliamentary  leader,  for  the  courage  he 
gives,  in  spite  of  the  animosities  he  excites,  sound, 
I  believe,  in  his  views  ;  not  so  scrupulous,  it  is  said,  as 
to  his  means  ;  talking  of  the  English  revolution  of 
1688,  but  knowing,  and  studying,  and  calculating  upon 
the  dispositions  of  the  French  in  1834;  wishing  to 
improve  their  history,  but  remembering  that  he  cannot 
alter  their  character  ;  an  advocate  of  education,  but  a 
strong  upholder  of  the  executive  power ;  if  the  present 
government  is  to  be  maintained,  M.  Thiers,  I  repeat, 
is  the  best  man  to  maintain  it. 

Yes  ;  you,  M.  Thiers,  are  the  man  of  the  present 
molnarchy ;  and  to  you  I  address  myself ;  Nam  quid 
ordinatione  civilius  ?  Quid  libertatc  pretiosius  ?  Porro 
qudm  turpe  si  ordinatio  ;  eversione^  libertas  servitute 
mutetur  ?  Accedit,  quod  tihi  certamen  est  tecum  :  one- 
rat  questurcB  tucsfama." 

But  what  are  the  difficulties  you  will  have  to  con- 
tend against? 

The  present  government  of  France  is,  as  I  have  said, 
a  government  of  peace,  a  government  without  preten- 
sion abroad,  a  government  that  is  to  please  the  Bour- 
geois at  home ;  it  is  a  government  essentially  based 
on  the  "bourgeoisie,"  and  on  the  character  of  the 
"bourgeoisie."  In  England,  this  foundation  for  a 
government  would  be  solid,  because  it  is  just  the 
qualities  which  distinguish  the  "bourgeoisie"  as  a 
class,  which  distinguish  England  as  a  nation.  It  is 
the  "  bourgeoisie"  which  in  England  is  the  class  most 
national,  in  its  seriousness  and  thoughtfulness,  in  its 
industry,  in  its  morality,  in  its  love  of  order.  These 
qualities,  the  characteristics  of  the  "  bourgeoisie"  of 
every  country,  are,  reader,  the  peculiar  characteristics 
of  our  country.  But  what  is  the  case  in  France  ?  Are 
seriousness,  and  thoughtfulness,  and  industry,  and  mo- 
rality, and  a  love  of  order — are  these  the  character- 
istics of  the  French  people  ?  As  in  England  tlie 
"  bourgeoisie"  represents  the  character  of  the  English, 


SINCE    THE    REVOLUTION.  81 

SO  in  France  the  character  of  the  "bourgeoisie"  is 
most  antipathetic  to  the  character  of  the  French. 

The  French  are  gay,  are  gallant,  are  witty,  are  vain. 
This  is  what  the  French  are  most  especially — and  this 
is  what  the  "  bourgeoisie"  is  less  than  any  other  part 
of  the  French  nation.  So  much  for  the  character  of 
France — then  for  the  history — What  does  the  history 
of  France  show  us  ?  The  reign  of  a  court — the  reign 
of  philosophers — the  reign  of  a  mob — the  reign  of  an 
army — the  reign  of  priests  and  a  provincial  gentry — a 
revolution  effected  at  once  by  the  populace,  by  the 
soldiery,  and  by  the  journalists — have  any  one  of  these 
epochs  sown  the  seeds  for  a  government  of  the  "  bour- 
geoisie ?'*  Then  there  are  influences  arising  out  of  the 
combination  of  the  character  and  the  history  of  a 
nation.  What  are  these  in  France  ? — female  influence 
— military  influence — literary  influence — are  any  of 
these  influences  favourable  to  a  government  of  the 
"  bourgeoisie  V 

We  may  regret  it,  but  I  think  we  must  own  that  a 
government  of  the  shopkeepers,  incorporating  the  feel- 
ings, the  wishes,  the  prepossessions,  and  the  prejudices 
of  the  shopkeepers,  cannot  be  popular  in  France.  It 
may  be  a  good  government — I  think,  upon  the  whole, 
it  would,  in  time,  become  a  good  govenrment  for 
France — but  for  many  years  it  cannot  be  a  popular  one. 
For  many  years  it  must  have  the  wit,  and  the  vanity, 
and  the  gallantry  of  the  French — the  influence  of  the 
women,  who  are  universally  fond  of  letters  and  arms, 
and  of  the  military  men,  and  of  the  literary  men, 
opposed  to  it.  It  cannot  be  a  popular  government — 
but  what  are  the  dangers  of  an  unpopular  government  ? 

One  great  danger  of  an  unpopular  government  is, 
that  it  never  knows  what  unpopular  act  it  may  be 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  on  the  one  hand,  nor  by 
what  extent  of  concession  it  may  be  obliged  to  pur- 
chase popularity  on  the  other.  It  cannot  pursue  a 
certain  course,  because  it  must  be  regulated,  not  by 
what  it  really  intends  to  do,  but  by  what  people  suspect 
it  of  intending  to  do  But,  if  you  are  suspected  of 
D3 


82  THE    STATK    OF    PARTIES 

intending  to  overturn  the  liberties  of  a  state,  such  will 
be  the  spirit  prevailing,  and  the  resistance  prepared, 
against  you,  that  if  you  mean  to  resist,  you  must  resist 
such  violent  fears  by  violent  means,  and  the  existence 
of  your  power  then  depends  upon  the  chances  of  an 
*'  emeute."  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  mean  to  concede, 
how  extraordinary  must  be  the  concessions  that  satisfy 
suspicion  1  Besides,  in  France,  to  what  and  to  whom 
will  the  government  have  to  concede  ?  To  military 
influence,  to  literary  influence, — to  the  military  men, 
to  the  literaiy  men !  Atud  where  would  these  men, 
and  these  influences,  if  the  government  must  concede  to 
their  extremes,  lead  it  ?  To  a  war  with  Europe,  and 
then  to  a  republic — or  to  a  republic,  and  then  to  a  war 
with  Europe. 

This  is  the  perilous  position  of  the  present  govern- 
ment in  France.  It  took  its  origin  from  a  course  not 
natural  to  the  character  of  the  people  ;  it  remains  based 
upon  conditions  to  which  the  character  of  the  people 
are  opposed.  Hence,  a  long  series  of  agitations — and 
the  dangers  attendant  upon  a  long  series  of  agitations — 
if  its  policy  be  moderate.  Hence,  the  chances  of 
revolution  on  the  one  side,  if  it  take  a  violent  course  to 
put  down  resistance — the  chances  of  war  on  the  other, 
if  it  take  a  violent  course  to  obtain  popularity — a  war 
and  a  revolution  both  leading  to  the  same  result. 

Time,  however,  is  the  great  resource  of  a  state 
placed  in  this  situation ;  for  the  effect  of  time  is  to 
blend  and  to  harmonize  opposing  things,  to  introduce 
the  character  of  a  nation  into  the  institutions — the 
institutions  of  a  nation  into  the  character  of  its  people  ; 
and  for  this  reason  the  policy  which  the  present 
monarchy  has  to  pursue  is,  and  must  be,  a  policy  of 
expedients.  A  ministry  must  be  formed  sufficiently 
strong  to  sustain  the  weakness  which  exists  in  the 
principle  of  the  government  itself.  This  is  the  best 
chance,  perhaps  the  only  one,  for  the  stability  of  exist- 
ing things. 

Oh !  it  is  impossible  to  stand  in  the  spot  where  I 
am  now  standing,  with  yon  splendid  confusion  of  domes 


SINCE    THK    UEVOLUTION.  S3 

and  spires,  of  palaces  and  public  buildings,  stretching 
out  before  me — in  sight  of  the  altars  of  Bossuet  and 
Massillon ;  of  the  palace  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon  ; 
of  the  Quai  de  Voltaire,  and  the  senate  of  Foy,  with- 
out feeling  the  wish  (where  all  is  great  in  recollec- 
tions, as  in  hopes)  to  unite  the  past  with  the  future — 
and  from  the  monarchy  of  the  fleurs-de-lis,  and  from 
the  empire  of  the  sword,  and  from  the  classic  eloquence 
of  the  theatre,  and  from  the  noble  reason  of  the  tribune, 
to  see,  in  letters  as  in  government,  a  new  system  arise, 
with  the  youth  and  freshness  of  which  may  be  blended 
the  venerability  and  majesty  of  by-gone  years. 

And  yet  is  it  impossible  to  see  so  many  of  this  peo- 
ple ridiculing  the  past  without  comprehending  its  poesy 
or  its  power  ;  plunging  into  the  future,  too  ignorant  of 
its  depth ;  discontented  with  the  present,  without  having 
any  hope  that  satisfies,  to  supply  the  reality  they  would 
destroy — yet  is  it  impossible  to  see  the  strife  between 
the  ideas  and  the  habits — the  reason  and  the  imagina- 
tion— the  desires  and  the  capabilities — the  fanaticism 
and  the  irreligion — the  loyalty  and  the  republicanism 
of  this  doctrinizing,  democratizing,  romanticizing,  clas- 
sifizing,  religionizing,  St.  Simonizing  race, — without 
doubting,  amid  the  confused  and  the  uncertain  shadows 
which  float  around  you, — which  are  those  of  the  things 
that  have  been,  which  are  those  of  the  things  that  are 
to  he. 

In  the  present  monarchy  there  is  neither  the  love  for 
the  new  nor  for  the  old ;  it  rests  not  on  the  past,  it  con- 
tents not  the  future.  It  was  taken  by  all  as  an  indif- 
ferent substitute  for  something  which  their  theory  or 
their  imagination  taught  them  to  consider  worse.  It 
has  no  hold  on  the  affections,  no  root  in  the  habits,  no 
power  over  the  passions,  of  the  people — no  magic  bridle 
upon  the  genius  of  the  time,  which  it  would  curb  and 
guide. 

Still,  let  us  not  forget  that  the  incertitude  of  its  des- 
tiny is  in  the  uncertain  character  of  its  origin — the 
blemish  which  disfigures  it  seems  to  have  been  inflicted 
at  its  birth.     There  is  a  scar  on  the  rind  of  the  young 


84  THE    STATE    OF    PARTIES,    ETC. 

tree,  which,  as  it  widens  every  year,  beomes  at  once 
more  visible  and  more  weak.  And  so  in  the  monarchy 
of  July,  the  time  which  displays,  destroys — which  ex- 
pands, obliterates  its  defects. 


END    OF   THE    SECOND   BOOK. 


BOOK    III. 

PREDOMINANT  INFLUENCES. 


Est  enim  admirabilis  quasdam  continuatio  seriesgue  reruin,  ut  alia 
ex  alifi  nexa  et  oinnes  inter  se  aptae,  colligataeque  videantur. — ('icerOf 
Hroiem    Lib.  I.  de  Naturd  Deorum. 


PREDOMINANT  INFLUENCES. 


WOMEN. 

Influence  of  women — Talleyrand,  Bonaparte,  and  Louis  XVIII. — 
Female  influence  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration — Madame  de  Ro- 
land and  Madame  de  Stael — Share  of  women  in  public  affairs — 
Their  importance  in  French  history — Their  assumptian  of  the 
mascuhne  character — Female  A  ids -de -camp — A  lady-duelhst — 
Contrast  between  French  women  and  EngUsh  women — Influence 
of  domestic  habits — Moral  Phenomenon — New  doctrine  of  mascu- 
line obedience — Female  disputants— Le  Royaume  des  Femmes — 
Policy  of  encouraging  the  development  of  female  intelligence,  and 
the  exaltation  of  female  principle. 

I  HAVE  just  been  speaking  of  influences,  partly  cre- 
ated by  history,  partly  by  national  character — and 
which,  rooted  deep  into  the  past,  must  extend  over  the 
future.  One  of  these  influences,  I  said,  when  I  was  on 
the  subject  of  gallantry,  that  I  should  again  speak  of — 
I  mean  the  influence  of  women.  Not  even  the  revolu- 
tion of  1789 — not  even  those  terrible  men  who  shivered 
a  sceptre  of  eight  centuries  to  atoms — not  even  the 
storm  which  overthrew  the  throne  of  the  Capets,  and 
scattered  over  Europe  the  priests  and  the  proud  no- 
bility of  France — not  the  excesses  of  the  Girondists,  the 
Dantonists,  and  the  triumvirate — not  the  guillotine,  not 
the  dungeon,  not  the  prison,  not  the  scaffold,  not  the 
law — not  the  decrees  which  cut  up  the  provinces  of 
France  into  departments,  and  the  estates  of  France 
into  farms — none  of  these  great  changes  and  instru- 
ments of  change  affected  an  empire  exclusive  to  no 
class,  which  had  spread  from  the  Tuileries  to  the  cot- 
tage, and  which  was  not  so  much  in  the  hearts  as  in 
the  habits  of  the  French  people.  Beneath  no  wave  of 
the  great  deluge,  which  in  sweeping  over  old  France 


88  INFLUKNCE    OF 

fertilized  new  France — beneath  no  wave  of  that  great 
deluge,  sank  the  presiding  landmark  of  ancient  man- 
ners ; — and  on  the  first  ebbing  of  the  waters,  you  saw 
— the  boudoir  of  Madame  Recamier,  and  the  "  bal  des 
victimes." 

Monsieur  de  Talleyrand  comes  from  America  in 
want  of  employment;  he  finds  it  in  the  salon  of 
Madame  de  Stael.  Bonaparte,  born  for  a  military 
career,  commenced  it  under  the  gentle  auspices  of 
Madame  de  Beauharnais.  Even  Louis  XVIII.  him- 
self, that  fat,  and  aged,  and  clever  monarch,  bestowed 
more  pains*  on  writing  his  pretty  little  billets-doux  than 
he  had  ever  given  to  the  dictation  of  the  Charta. 

There  was  a  back  way  to  the  council-chamber, 
which  even  his  infirmities  did  not  close ;  and  many 
were  the  gentle  lips,  as  some  persons  have  confessed 
to  me,  that  murmured  over  "  amo,"  in  its  diff'erent 
moods  and  tenses,  in  the  vain  hope  of  rivalling  Mes- 
dames  P  *  *  *  and  D  *  *  *  in  the  classical  affections  of 
this  royal  and  lettered  gallant. 

It  was  under  this  influence,  indeed,  that  the  unfor- 
tunate king  succumbed :  as  it  was  with  this  influence 
that  many  of  the  faults,  as  well  as  many  of  the  graces 
of  the  Restoration  were  combined. 

"In  1815,  after  the  return  of  the  king,"  says  a  late 
author,  "  the  drawing-rooms  of  Paris  had  all  the  life 
and  brilliancy  which  distinguished  them  in  the  old 
regime.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive  the  ridicu- 
lous and  oftentimes  cruel  sayings  which  were  circu- 
lated in  these  pure  and  elegant  saloons.  The  Prin- 
cesse  de  Tremouille,  the  Mesdames  d'Escars,  De  Ro- 
han, and  De  Duras,  were  the  principal  ladies  at  this 
time  who  ruled  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain.  With 
them  you  found  the  noble  youth  of  the  old  families  in 
France  ;  the  generals  of  the  allied  armies  ;  the  young 
women  exalted  in  their  ideas  of  loyalty  and  loyal  de- 

*  When  Bonaparte  entered  the  Tileries,  during  the  hundred  da.ys, 
he  found  many  of  these  httle  billets,  and  a  large  collection  of  Louis's 
interesting  correspondence.  The  Emperor  would  not  hear  of  tlieir 
being  read  or  published. 


WOMKN.  89 

votion;  the  more  elderly  ladies,  celebrated  in  that 
witty  and  courtly  clique  for  the  quickness  of  their  re- 
partees, and  the  graces  of  their  conversation ;  the 
higher  functionaries  of  the  Tuileries  ;  the  prelates  and 
peers  of  France :  and  it  was  amid  the  business  of  whist 
and  the  amorous  whisperings  of  intrigue  that  these 
personages  discussed  the  means  to  bring  back  the 
olden  monarchy,  and  to  restore  the  reign  of  religion. 

"  There  was,  more  especially  among  the  women, 
an  ardour  for  change,  a  passion  for  the  divine  rights 
of  legitimacy,  which  blended  naturally  with  their 
adulterous  tendernesses  in  favour  of  a  handsome  mous- 
quetaire,  or  a  well-grown  lieutenant  of  the  garde  royale. 
Then  it  was,  that  with  their  nerves  excited  by  love, 
they  called  for  proscriptions,  for  deaths,  for  the  blood 
of  Ney  and  Labedoy^re  !  What  must  have  been  the 
violence  of  parties,  when  a  young  and  beautiful  female 
applauded  the  massacres  of  the  South,  and  associated 
herself  in  thought  with  the  assassins  of  Ramel  and 
Lagarde !" 

But  if  the  women  in  France  exercise,  and  some- 
times exercise  so  fatally,  a  greater  influence  than, 
since  the  time  of  the  Babylonians  and  the  Egyptians, 
they  have  been  known  to  exercise  elsewhere ;  no 
country  has  yet  produced  a  race  of  women  so  remark- 
able, or  one  which  affords  history  so  many  great  names 
and  great  examples.  I  might  take  the  reader  back  to 
the  times  of  chivalry ;  but  with  these  times  the  man- 
ners of  our  own  may  hardly  be  said  to  mingle.  Let 
us  look  then  at  the  annals  of  these  very  days !  Who 
was  the  enemy  most  dreaded  by  the  Mountain  ?  Who 
was  the  rival  that  disputed  empire  with  Napoleon  ? 
Madame  de  Roland  and  Madame  de  Stael.  These 
two  women  alone,  without  fortune,  without  protection, 
save  that  of  their  own  talent,  boldly  vindicated  the 
power  of  the  mind  before  its  two  most  terrible  ad- 
versaries, and  have  triumphed  with  posterity  even  over 
the  guillotine  and  the  sword.  There  is  an  energy,  a 
desire  for  action,  a  taste,  and  a  capacity  for  business 
among  the  females  of  France,  the  more  remarkable 
8* 


90  INFLUENCE    OB 

from  the  elegance,  the  grace,  the  taste  for  pleasure  and 
amusement  with  which  this  sterner  nature  is  combined. 

Observe !  from  the  very  moment  that  women  were 
admitted  into  society  in  France,  they  have  claimed 
their  share  in  public  affairs. 

From  the  time  of  Francis  the  First,  when  they 
established  their  influence  in  the  court,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent moment,  when  they  are  disputing  the  actual  pos- 
session of  the  Bar  and  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  they 
have  never  shrunk  from  a  contest  with  their  bearded 
competitors.  Excluded  from  the  throne  and  sceptre 
by  the  laws,  they  have  frequently  ruled  by  a  power 
stronger  than  all  laws,  and  amid  a  people  vain,  frivo- 
lous, gallant,  chivalric,  and  fond  of  pleasure ;  amid  a 
people  among  whom  the  men  have  in  their  character 
something  of  the  woman ;  the  women  have  taken  up 
their  place  in  life  by  the  side  of  the  men. 

More  adroit  in  their  conduct,  more  quick  in  their 
perceptions  than  the  slower  and  less  subtle  sex,  they 
have  ruled  absolutely  in  those  times  when  adroitness 
of  conduct  and  quickness  of  perception  have  been  the 
qualities  most  essential  to  pre-eminence  ;  and  even 
during  the  violent  and  passionate  intervals  which  have 
demanded  the  more  manly  properties  of  enterprise  and 
daring,  they  have  not  been  altogether  lost  amid  the 
rush  of  contending  parties  and  jarring  opinions.* 

Not  a  page  in  French  history,  from  the  sixteenth 
century  to  the  nineteenth,  but  has  to  speak  of  some 
female  reputation ;  nor  is  there  a  path  to  fame  which 
female  footsteps  have  not  trod  !  Is  royalty  more  his- 
torical than  the  names  of  De  Montespan,  De  Maintenon, 
De  Pompadour!  What  chief  of  the  Fronde  do  we 
know  better  than  the  Duchesse  de  Longueville  ? 
What  diplomatist  of  Louis  XIV.  better  than  the  Prin- 
cesse  d'tlrsins  ?  What  clever  and  able  intriguant  of 
the  regency  better  than  Mademoiselle  de  Tencin? 
And  then,  who  does  not  remember  the  ingenious  Scu- 


*  It  was  the  women  marching  to  Versailles  that  created  one  of  the 
remarkable  epochs  of  the  revolution  of  1789. 


WOMEN.  91 

dery — the  epicurean  Ninon — the  dear  and  agreeable 
Sevigne — the  lettered  and  voluptuous  Marion  de  Lorme 
— the  virtuous  Cheron — the  celebrated  and  learned  Da- 
cier — the  amiable  Staal  (Mademoiselle  Delaunay) — 
the  unfortunate  Duch^telet — the  witty  Dudeffand — the 
graceful  Deshouilli^res  ?  Such  are  the  familiar  names 
of  a  past  generation.  Have  we  not  those  of  D'Abrantes, 
Gay,  Girardin,  Tastu,  AUart,  Dudevant  (G.  Sand),  in 
our  own  1 

Go  to  France,  and  you  will  find  that  even  costume 
itself  is  not  considered  an  insuperable  barrier  between 
the  sexes.  Certes,  any  good  citizen  of  London  would 
be  strangely  surprised  if  he  found  her  Majesty  Queen 
Adelaide  amid  the  most  retired  recesses  of  Windsor 
Park  skipping  over  the  daisies  and  buttercups  in  a  pair 
of  breeches !  and  yet,  so  lately,  when  royalty  in  France 
was  more  essentially  a  spectacle,  and  every  eye  was 
turned  on  the  unfortunate  family  again  passing  into 
exile,  it  struck  no  one  with  astonishment,  no  one  with 
disgust,  that  the  mother  of  Henry  V.  should  appear 
masqueraded  as  one  of  her  pages.*  More  is  con- 
tained in  a  fact  of  this  sort  than  we  generally  sup- 
pose !  Besides,  there  are  various  examples  (the  Che- 
valier d'Eon  is  one  of  the  most  notorious)  where 
French  women  have  not  only  attired  themselves  as 
males,  but  actually  pursued  through  life  a  masculine 
career.  Never  have  the  French  armies  been  engaged 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  France  without  there  being 
found  many  of  those  females,  of  those  delicate  and  fra- 
gile females,  whom  one  sees  in  the  "  salons"  of  Paris, 
slain  on  the  field  of  battle,  to  which  they  had  been  led, 
not  so  much'  by  a  violent  passion  for  their  lovers 
(French  women  do  not  love  so  violently)  as  by  a  pas- 
sion for  that  action  and  adventure  which  they  are  will- 
ing to  seek  even  in  a  camp. 

At  the  battle  of  Jemmappes,  Dumourier  had  for  his 
aids-de-camp  two  of  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  deli- 
cate, and  accomplished  young  women  in  society  of  the 

*  See  the  description  of  the  Duchesse  de  Bern's  dress, 


92  -  INFLUENCE    OF 

time  ;  equally  chaste  and  warlike,  these  modern  Ca- 
millas felt  a  veneration  for  the  profession  of  arms  ; 
they  delighted  in  the  smoke  of  the  cannon  and  the 
sound  of  the  trumpet.  Often,  a  general  told  me,  in  the 
most  desperate  cries  of  the  battle,  he  has  heard  their 
slender  but  animated  voices  reproaching  flight  and 
urging  to  the  charge ;  "  Ou  allez-vous,  soldats  ?  ce 
n'est  pas  la  I'ennemi !  En  avant !  suivez  !" — and  you 
might  have  seen  their  waving  plumes  and  amazonian 
garb  amid  the  thickest  of  the  fire. 

In  the  duel  of  the  Marquise  de  B you  see,  in 

the  time  of  Louvet,  and  in  the  romance  of  Faublas,  the 
manners  and  the  disposition,  the  reckless  and  the  dar- 
ing character,  of  the  ladies  of  the  court  previous  to  the 
Revolution.  It  happens  that  a  similar  event  actually 
occurred  to  my  knowledge  not  many  years  ago. 
Charged  with  infidelity  to  her  lover  by  a  person  who 
falsely  boasted  of  her  favours,  a  lady  challenged  the 
slanderer  under  an  assumed  name,  and  moreover 
wounded  him  desperately  in  the  rencounter. 

It  is  to  this  bold  and  restless  disposition,  favoured 
by  past  institutions,  that  you  must  attribute  the  inde- 
pendence which  French  women  assert,  and  the  power 
which  they  have  enjoyed  and  still  maintain  ;  aided,  no 
doubt,  by  the  general  character  of  their  nation,  which 
denies  many  of  the  more  stern  and  governing  qualities 
of  the  mind  to  the  men. 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  if  a  French  woman 
possess  power,  she  holds  it  in  carelessness  or  indo- 
lence— that  it  costs  her  no  pains  to  procure  its  posses- 
sion, or  to  secure  its  continuance. 

How  is  it  possible  that  an  Englishwoman,  such  as 
we  ordinarily  find  the  Englishwomen  of  London  society 
— how  is  it  possible  that  such  a  woman  should  possess 
the  slightest  influence  over  a  man  three  degrees  re- 
moved from  dandyism  and  the  Guards  1  What  are  her 
objects  of  interest  but  the  most  trumpery  and  insignifi- 
cant ?  What  are  her  topics  of  conversation  but  the 
most  ridiculous  and  insipid  ?  Not  only  does  she  lower 
down  her  mind  to  the  level  of  the  emptiest-pated  of 


WOMEN.  93 

the  male  creatures  that  she  meets,  but  she  actually 
persuades  herself,  and  is  actually  persuaded,  that  it  is 
charming  and  feminine,  &c.  to  do  so.  She  will  talk 
to  you  about  hunting  and  shooting,  that  is  not  unfemi- 
nine  !  oh  no  !  But  politics,  the  higher  paths  of  litera- 
ture, the  stir  and  action  of  life,  in  which  all  men  worth 
any  thing,  and  from  whom  she  could  borrow  any  real 
influence,  are  plunged,  of  these  she  knows  nothing, 
thinks  nothing  ;  in  these  she  is  not  interested  at  all ; 
and  only  wonders  that  an  intellectual  being  can  have 
any  other  ambition  than  to  get  what  she  calls  good  in- 
vitations to  the  stupidest,  and  hottest,  and  dullest  of  the 
stupid,  hot,  and  dull  drawing-rooms  of  London.  There 
are  of  course  reasons  for  all  this  ;  and  I  agree  with  a 
late  work*  in  asserting  one  of  these  reasons  to  be  the 
practice  which  all  England  insists  upon  as  so  inno- 
cent, so  virtuous,  so  modest,  so  disinterested,  viz. : — 
"  bringing  out,"  as  it  is  called,  a  young  woman  at  six- 
teen, who  is  ushered  into  a  vast  variety  of  crowded 
rooms  with  this  injunction  :  '*  There,  go  ;  hunt  about, 
and  get  a  good,"  which  means  a  rick,  "  husband." 

This  command — for  miss  is  greatly  bored  with  papa 
and  mamma,  and  the  country-house,  and  the  country 
parsonis, — very  readily  obeyed.  Away  she  starts — 
dances  with  this  man,  sighs  to  that ;  and  as  her  edu- 
cation has  not  been  neglected,  she  ventures,  perhaps, 
at  the  first  onset,  to  give  vent  to  a  few  of  those  ideas 
which  her  governess,  or  her  reading,  or  the  solitude 
of  her  early  life  have  given  birth  to.  Wo  upon  her  ! 
The  rich  young  man  who  has  such  a  fine  property  in 

shire,  and  who  is  really  so  very  good-looking,  and 

so  very  well  dressed,  opens  his  eyes,  shrugs  up  his 
shoulders,  turns  pale,  turns  red,  and  looks  very  stupid 
and  very  confused,  and  at  the  first  opportunity  glides 
away,  muttering  to  an  acquaintance,  "  I  say,  what  a 
d — d  blue  that  girl  is."  Never  mind,  my  good  young 
lady !  In  a  second  season,  you  will  be  as  simple  and 
as  silly  as  your  chaperon  can  desire.     Do  but  go  on 

'  England  and  the  English. 


94  INFLUENCE    OF 

— a  constant  succession  of  balls  and  parties,  and  list- 
less conversations,  will  soon  make  you  all  the  most 
plottmg  mother  can  desire — and  all  I  regret  is,  that 
when  you  have  at  last  succeeded  in  the  wearisome 
aim  of  your  youth,  when  you  have  fixed  the  fate  of 
some  wealthy,  and  perhaps  titled  booby,  a  constant 
habit  of  dulness  will  have  been  generated  from  the 
stupidity  that  was  necessary  to  secure  him. 

Of  late  years  this  misfortune  has  been  increasing : 
because  of  late  years  fortune  and  rank  have  been 
more  entirely  separated  from  talent  and  education ;  to 
such  a  degree  indeed  has  it  increased — that  no  man, 
after  his  reason  has  burst  its  leading-strings,  ever  now 
exposes  himself  to  the  insufferable  ennui  of  general 
society. 

In  England,  then,  the  persons  who  are  engaged  in 
those  pursuits  which  give  public  influence,  fly,  as  from 
a  pestilence,  what  is  called  a  life  of  pleasure,  and 
which,  instead  of  being  a  relaxation  to  a  set  of  think- 
ing and  active  human  creatures,  has  become  a  busi- 
ness to  a  class  of  persons  who  have  neither  thought 
nor  capability  for  action. 

When  a  woman  comes  into  the  world  in  France,  she 
comes  into  the  world  with  no  pursuit  that  distracts 
her  from  its  general  objects.  Her  own  position  is 
fixed.  She  is  married,  not  sold,  as  the  English  peo- 
ple believe — not  sold  in  any  degree  more  than  an  Eng- 
lish young  lady  is  sold — though  she  has  not  been 
seen  panting  from  party  to  party  in  quest  of  a  buyer.* 

Young  women,  then,  come  into  society  in  France 
with  a  fixed  position  there,  and  are  generally  interested 
in  the  subjects  of  general  interest  to  the  world.     The 


*  A  marriage  takes  place  in  France  under  the  following  circum- 
stances : — The  friends  of  the  two  parties  agree,  that  if  the  young 
people  like  one  another,  a  very  suitable  connection  might  be  formed. 
The  young  people  then  meet,  and,  if  they  are  to  each  other's  taste, 
the  match  takes  place ;  and  surely  this  is  as  sentimental,  and  as  deU- 
cate  as  teaching  a  young  lady  every  thing  that  can  solicit  a  declara- 
tion of  marriage,  and  which,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  she  does  not 
forget  afterward,  when  anv  declaration  she  receives  must  be  a  decla- 
ration of  love 


WOMEN.  95 

persons  and  the  pursuits  that  they  find  most  dis- 
tinguished, are  the  persons  and  the  pursuits  that  most 
attract  their  attention.  Educated  besides,  not  with 
the  idea  that  they  are  to  catch  a  husband,  but  that  they 
are  to  have  a  husband,  as  a  matter  of  course,  caught 
for  them — a  husband  whom  they  are  not  obliged  to 
seduce  by  any  forced  and  false  expressions  of  affection 
— ^but  to  take  quietly  from  their  friends,  as  a  friend, — 
they  occupy  themselves  at  once  with  this  husband's 
interests,  with  this  husband's  occupations,  and  never 
imagine  that  they  are  to  share  his  confidence,  but  on 
the  ground  that  they  understand  his  pursuits — whoever 
be  their  lover,  their  husband  is  their  companion.* 

I  was  talking  one  evening  with  the  master  of  the 
house  where  I  had  been  dining,  on  some  subject  of 
trade  and  politics,  which  I  engaged  in  unwillingly,  in 
the  idea  that  it  was  not  very  likely  to  interest  the  lady. 
I  was  soon  rather  astonished,  I  confess,  to  find  her 
enter  into  the  conversation  with  a  knowledge  of  detail 
and  a  right  perception  of  general  principles  which  I 
did  not  expect.  "How  do  you  think,"  said  she  to 
me,  when  I  afterward  expressed  my  surprise,  "  that 
I  could  meet  my  husband  every  evening  at  dinner,  if  I 
were  not  able  to  talk  on  the  topics  on  which  he  has 
been  employed  in  the  morning?"  An  English  fine  lady 
would  have  settled  the  question  very  differently,  by 
affirming,  as  an  undeniable  proposition,  that  politics 
and  such  stuff  were  great  bores,  and  that  a  man,  to  be 
agreeable,  must  talk  of  balls  and  operas,  and  dress. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  high  society  and  in  good  society, 
in  the  "  salon"  and  in  the  "  boudoir,"  that  you  find 
the  female  in  France  take  an  important  position.  It 
is  the  same  in  the  comptoir,  in  the  cafe,  and  at  the 
shop.  She  is  there  also  the  great  personage,  keeps 
the  accounts,  keeps  the  money,  regulates  and  super- 

*  Matrimonial  ragrCility  is  not  high  in  France.  I  grant  it.  But 
this  proceeds  from  a  variety  of  causes  with  which  the  system  of 
giving  in  marriage  (a  system  which  prevails  all  over  the  Continent, 
and  in  countries  where  the  ladies  are  quite  as  faithful  as  our  ovm), 
has  nothing  in  the  world  to  do. 


96  INFLUENCE    OF 

intends  the  business.  Go  even  into  a  sword-maker's 
or  a  gun-maker's  ;  it  is  as  likely  as  not  that  you  will 
be  attended  to  by  a  female,  who  will  handle  the  sword 
and  recommend  the  gun ;  and  there  is  a  mixture  of 
womanly  gentleness  and  masculine  decision  in  the 
little  creature — so  easy,  so  unembarrassed,  so  prettily 
dressed,  and  so  delicately  shaped — that  you  are  at  a 
loss  to  reconcile  with  all  your  preconceived  notions  of 
effrontery  on  the  one  hand  and  effeminacy  on  the 
other. 

There  is  generally  some  trait  in  the  domestic  habits 
of  a  country  \vhich  may  seem  at  a  casual  glance  un- 
important, but  which  is  connected  more  closely  than 
you  imagine  with  the  whole  social  system  that  custom, 
history,  and  character  have  established. 

If  I  wanted  an  illustration  of  this,  I  would  take  the 
still-prevailing  custom  that  banishes  women  from  the 
dinner-table  in  England  as  soon  as  a  certain  state  of 
hilarity,  or  a  certain  seriousness  of  conversation  be- 
comes visible.  A  profound  observer  sees  in  this  little 
fact  alone  a  distinction  which  must  affect  the  laws,  the 
morality,  the  crimes,  and  the  amusements  of  a  whole 
population.  He  sees  at  once  that  the  one  sex  is  not 
a  free  participator  in  the  plans,  and  the  projects,  and 
the  pleasures  of  the  other.  He  sees  at  once  how  this 
fact  extends  itself  over  our  society  and  our  statute- 
book,  our  prisons  and  our  public  houses  ;  and  many 
of  the  differences  that  he  finds  between  the  French 
and  the  English — differences  sometimes  to  the  advan- 
tage of  one  people,  sometimes  to  the  advantage  of 
the  other — he  is  prepared  to  account  for  by  the  differ- 
ent relations  that  exist  in  France  and  in  England  be- 
tween the  two  sexes.  Let  it  be  crime,  or  pleasure, 
conspiracy,  assassination,  or  debauch — whatever  takes 
place  in  France,  be  sure  that  the  influence  of  woman 
has  been  felt  upon  it,  that  the  passions  of  woman  have 
been  mingled  up  with  it  ;*  for  the  same  feelings  and 

*  Vidocq's  Memoirs  abound  in  proofs  of  this. 


WOMEN.  97 

the  same  energies  which  make  us  capable  of  great 
things,  propel  us  on  to  bad  ;  and  if  we  wish  to  find  the 
most  innocent,  I  fear  we  must  seek  for  them,  as  in 
Paraguay,  among  the  weakest  of  mankind. 

There  is  a  remarkable  female  phenomenon  in 
France,  which  contrasts  itself  with  what  occurs  in  al- 
most every  other  country.  In  England,  it  is  a  melan- 
choly fact,  that  many  of  the  miserable  creatures  who 
at  midnight  parade  the  streets,  and  whose  only  joy  is 
purchased  for  a  penny  at  Mr.  Thomson's  gin-shop, 
have  fallen,  perchance,  but  a  few  months  since,  from 
situations  of  comfort,  honesty,  and  respectability.  In 
France,  the  woman  who  begins  with  the  most  disgust- 
ing occupation  on  the  Boulevards,  usually  contrives, 
year  after  year,  to  ascend  one  step  after  another  into  a 
more  creditable  position.*  The  hope  and  the  desire 
to  rise  never  forsake  her  ;  notwithstanding  her  vanity 
and  her' desire  for  dress,  and  her  passion  for  pleasure, 
she  husbands  her  unhappy  earnings.  There  is  a  kind 
of  virtue  and  order  mingling  with  the  extravagance  and 
vice  which  form  part  of  her  profession.  The  aged 
mother,  or  the  little  sister,  is  never  forgotten.  She 
has  not  that  first  horror  of  depravity  which  is  found 
among  our  chaster  females  ;  but  she  falls  not  at  once, 
nor  does  she  ever  fall  lower  than  necessity  obliges 
her.  Without  education,  she  contrives  to  pick  up  a 
certain  train  of  thought,  a  finesse,  and  a  justness  of 
ideas — a  thorough  knowledge  of  life  and 'of  character 

*  A  great  many  of  the  furnished  hotels  in  Paris  are  kept  by  women 
of  this  description;  some  of  these  hotels  belong  to  them;  for  when- 
ever they  have  money  sufficient,  they  always  invest  it  in  property  of 
this  description. 

The  commonest  of  Madame  Leroi's  httle  apprentices  has  an  air, 
and  a  manner,  and  a  tone  that  approach  her  to  good  society ;  a  mind 
of  natural  distinction,  which  elevates  her  at  once  above  the  artificial 
lessons  of  good  breeding,  and  makes  her,  grammar  and  orthography 
excepted,  just  what  you  find  the  fine  lady;  you  see  that  the  clay  of 
which  both  are  made  is  of  equal  fineness,  and  that  it  la  only  by  an 
accident  that  the  one  has  been  moulded  into  a  marquise,  the  other 
into  a  milliner.  There  is  hardly  an  example  of  a  French  woman,  sud- 
denly elevated,  who  has  not  taken,  as  it  were  by  instuict,  the  man- 
ners belonging  to  her  new  situation.  Madame  iu  Barry  was  as  re- 
markable for  her  elegance  as  the  Duchesse  de  Berri. 


98  INFLUENCE    OF 

— and,  what  perhaps  is  most  surprising  of  all,  a  tact, 
d  delicacy,  and  elegance  of  manners,  which  it  is  per- 
fectly marvellous  that  she  should  have  preserved — 
much  more  that  ^she  should  have  collected  from  the 
wretchedness  and  filth  which  her  life  has  been  dragged 
through.  In  the  lowest  state  of  infamy  and  misery, 
she  cherishes  and  displays  feelings  you  would  have 
thought  incompatible  with  such  a  state  ;  and  as  one  has 
wept  over  the  virtues  and  the  frailties  of  the  dear,  and 
the  beautiful,  and  imaginary  Marie  I'Escaut,  so  there 
are  real  heroines  in  Vidocq,  whom  our  sympathy  and 
our  affection  accompany  to  the  galleys. 

Such  are  the  women  of  France  !  The  laws  and  hab- 
its of  a  constitutional  government  will  in  a  certain 
degree  affect  their  character — will  in  a  certain  degree 
diminish  their  influence  ;  but  that  character  is  too  long 
confirmed,  that  influence  is  too  widely  spread,  for  the 
legislation  which  affects  them  on  the  one  hand,  not  to 
be  affected  by  them  on  the  otlier  ;  and  it  would  take  a 
revolution  more  terrible  than  any  we  have  yet  seen,  to 
keep  the  deputy  at  the  Chamber  after  six  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  and  to  bring  his  wife  to  the  conviction 
that  she  was  not  a  fit  companion  for  him  after  dinner. 
Still,  undoubtedly  there  has  been  a  change,  not  as 
much  in  the  habits  of  domestic,  as  in  the  habits  of  po- 
litical life  ;  and  though  the  husband  and  the  lover  are 
still  under  feminine  sway,  the  state  is  at  all  event!? 
comparatively  free  from  female  caprice.  Is  it  on  ac- 
count of  the  power  they  possess,  or  because  that 
power  appears  rather  on  the  decline,  that  the  more 
sturdy  heroines  of  the  day  have  raised  the  old  standard 
of  the  immortal  Jeanne,  and  with  the  famous  device, 
"  Notre  banniere  etant  au  peril,  il  faut  qu'elle  soit  a 
I'honneuj,"*  marc?h  to  what  they  call  the  deliverance 
of  female  kind  ? 

I  was  present  in  the  Rue  Taranne  at  one  of  the 
weekly  meetings  which  take  place  among  these  high- 
spirited  ladies  ;  and  I  own  that,  as  I  cast  my  eye  round 

*  Motto  of  Jeanne  d'Arc. 


WOMEN.  99 

tJhe  room  upon  the  unprepossessing  countenances  of 
the  feminine  apostles  who  preached  the  new  doctrine 
of  masculine  obedience,  I  could  at  all  events  perfectly 
conceive  that  there  were  some  conditions  between  the 
sexes  which  they  would  naturally  desire  to  see  altered. 

An  old  gentleman,  a  member  of  the  "  institut^^^  and 
decorated  with  a  red  riband — an  old  gentleman,  a  very 
kind  and  amiable,  but  debile-looking  old  gentleman, 
was  raising  a  tremulous  and  affrighted  voice  in  the 
vain  endeavour  to  calm  the  eloquent  passions  of  his 
agitated  audience,  who,  after  having  commenced,  in  an 
orderly  manner  enough,  by  most  timidly  reading  three 
or  four  cold  and  learned  discourses,  were  now  extem- 
porizing a  confusion  of  clamours  and  contradictions, 
which  justified  in  some  sort  their  pretensions  to  a  seat 
in  their  national  assembly. 

These  most  independent  dames  could  no  longer,  it 
appeared,  support  the  idea  of  being  presided  over  by 
any  thing  that  approached,  even  as  much  as  the  un- 
happy old  academician,  to  the  form  and  propensities 
of  a  man.  And  the  question  they  called  upon  him  to 
propose  was,  his  retreat  from  the  post  of  honour  that 
he  occupied,  in  favour  of  some  one  of  the  sage  and 
moderate  crew  who,  mounted  on  the  chairs,  on  the 
table,  vociferating,  threatening,  applauding,  reminded 
one  of  the  furies  of  Thrace,  without  giving  one  the 
least  idea  of  the  music  of  Orpheus.  What  became  of 
that  ancient  gentleman — where  he  is — whether — his 
eyes  torn  from  their  sockets,  his  tongue  from  his  mouth, 
his  hair  from  his  head,  his  limbs  from  his  body — he 
has  joined  in  unhappy  fractions  the  great  substance 
and  spirit  of  the  universe — Heaven  knows  !  I  shud- 
der to  inquire — but,  on  leaving  him,  I  certainly  felt  far 
more  impressed  with  pity  for  his  situation  than  for  that 
of  the  complaining  ladies  over  whom  he  presided.* 

*  It  would  be  unjust,  however,  not  to  acknowledge  that  there  were 
many  ideas  just  and  reasonable  enough  in  the  written  discourse's  with 
which  the  evening's  proceedings  commenced.  The  orators  on  this 
occasion  were,  for  the  most  part,  governesses,  who,  as  I  understand, 
under  the  pretext  of  addressmg  themselves  to  the  subject  of  educa- 
tion, to  which  the  room  and  the  president  are  dedicated,  give  vent  to 


100  INFLUENCE    OF 

The  cry  of  this  society,  however,  has  found  an  echo 
even  in  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music,  where  you  may 
see  the  "revolt  of  the  women"  spreading  confusion 
amid  the  vast  and  beautiful  galleries  of  the  Alhambra. 
But  if  you  really  wish  to  find  female  power  in  that 
proud  situation  of  pre-eminence  in  which  "  the  Parisian 
philosophesses"  wish  to  place  it,  go  to  the  Ambigu 
Comique !  .  .  .  there  you  find 

LE  ROYAUME  DES  FEMMES. 
Piece  fantastique  en  Deux  Actes. 

Two  French  travellers,  carried  rather  farther  in  a 
balloon  than  they  had  any  idea  of  journeying,  arrive 
at  this  powerful  and  enlightened  kingdom,  in  which, 
strange  to  say,  the  language  of  France,  by  some  miracle, 
is  spoken.  Here  every  thing  is  changed  which  under 
an  abominable  tyranny  has  flourished  elsewhere — and 
the  queen,  at  the  head  of  a  very  lady-like  garde  na- 
tionale,  reminds  her  brave  sisters  in  arms  that  the  fate 
of  their  country,  of  their  husbands,  of  their  children, 
is  in  their  hands,  and  that  it  is  for  them  to  protect  a 
sex  feeble  and  without  defence.* 

their  notions  as  to  the  pursuits  and  the  occupations  to  which  the 
society  ought  properly  to  devote  themselves. 

I  will  not  dismiss  the  subject  of  this  meeting,  -without  mentioning 
one  proposition  made  that  evening  by  a  lady,  and  with  which  I  must 
say  I  heartily  concur,  viz.  that  the  members  of  this  sect  should  be 
distinguished  by — as  she  expressed  herself — "a  piece  of  red  or  blue 
riband,  or  some  other  badge  of  distinction" 

''  Fsenum  habet  in  cornu,  hunc  tu,"  good  reader,  "  caveto !" 
*  Neilora  entre  en  sc^ne ;  son  costume  est  dans  le  meme  style  que 
les  autres,  mais  beaucoup  phis  riche,  elle  a  unecouronne  sur  la  tdte. 
Mouvement  des  femmes  analogue  a  celui  de  nos  soldats  lorsqu'ils 
presentent  les  armes. 

Nellora,  apres  un  salut  afFectueuxde  Rodolphe,  se  toumant  vers 
les  femmes.  Mesdames  et  braves  camarades,  je  suis  contente  de 
votre  zele,  de  votre  bonne  tenue  .  .  .  le  sort  de  la  patrie,  celui  de  vos 
mans  et  de  vos  enfans  est  entre  vos  mains  .  .  .  c'est  h  vous  de  proUger 
wi  sexe  faible  et  sans  defense. 

Air  d'Adolphe  Adam.     (Introduction  de  Casimir.) 
Guerri^res  de  tons  grades 
Dociles  a  ma  voix, 
Mes  braves  camarade, 
Defendez  a  la  fois 
Le  bon  ordre  et  les  lois. 
Ce  sexe  qu'on  encense 


WOMEN.  101 

In  this  island 

La  femme  est  pleine  de  valeur, 

De  force  et  de  science, 
Elle  est  soldat  ou  procureur, 

Lois,  commerce,  finance, 

Elle  fait  tout 

Et  son  amant  ? 
Fait  la  soupe  et  garde  Fenfant. 
Jeime  lille  aux  yeux  seducteurs, 

Pres  d'un  garQon  trop  sage. 
Pour  cacher  ses  desseins  trompeurs 

Parle  de  mariage ; 
Le  jeune  homme  modestement 
Repond  :   demandez.  a  maman. 


And  in  fact  the  dignity  of  one's  sex  is  somewhat 
shocked  to  find  the  queen  keeping  her  seraglio  ;  an  old 
dowager,  a  major  of  the  Royal  Guards,  attempting  to 
seduce  the  whiskered  object  of  her  aflfections  by  cer- 
tain lucrative  propositions ;  and  a  young  man  of  this 
remarkable  kingdom  weeping  over  the  disgrace  he  has 
fallen  into  from  his,  weakness  in  favour  of  a  young 
lady,  who,  after  profiting  by  a  promise  of  marriage, 
refuses  to  keep  her  word. 

But  it  would  not  be  fair,  in  ridiculing  the  absurdities 
of  women  who  are  too  mad  or  too  ignorant  to  under- 
stand the  extent  of  their  folly — it  would  not  be  fair  to 

Vous  promet  au  retour, 
Pour  votre  recompense, 
Le  bonheur  et  I'amour. 
En  avant,  en  avant !  {bis.) 
Marchez,  le  pays  vous  appelle, 

Courageux  et  fiddle  - 

A  la  foi  du  serment, 
Un  soldat  va  toujours  en  avant. 
Ce  drapeau  quand  il  le  faudra, 
Signal  de  gloire, 
A  la  victoire 
Vous  guidera. 
Et  vmis,  Messieurs,  soyez  toujours  exempts  (Talarmes, 
Faut-il  courir  aux  armes  ? 
Nous  sommes  Ih. 
{ChvBur.)  En  avant,  etc. 

9* 


102  INFLUENCE    OF 

deny  that,  in  the  idea  which  some  foolish  followers 
of  a  ridiculous  system  have  made  contemptible,  there 
is,  as  that  idea  was  first  conceived,  much  justice  and 
much  benevolence.  In  opening  other  careers  to  fe- 
male ambition — in  making  fame  and  fortune  more  easy 
of  honest  attainment,  you  would  doubtless  diminish 
that  calamity  which  is  engendered  by  necessity  and 
ambition  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  want  of  an  honoura- 
ble way  to  power  and  independence  on  the  other.  It 
would  never  enter  into  the  head  of  any  but  a  fanatic  or 
a  fool  to  dress  up  Mademoiselle  Cecile  in  a  judge's 
robes,  or  a  field  marshal's  uniform;  but  it  would  be 
wise  in  a  government  to  encourage  and  assist,  as  far  as 
a  government  can  encourage  and  assist ;  that  devel- 
opment of  intelligence  and  that  habit  of  application 
which  would  give,  in  the  various  situations  of  life, 
every  facility  to  the  female  who  pursues  a  virtuous  and 
useful  avocation.* 

Much  of  the  fate  of  females  must  depend  on  the  in- 
struction they  receive.  One  dislikes  to  indulge  in 
theories  which  seem  to  have  no  immediate  chance  of 
realization  ;  and  when  we  see  the  wild  doctrines  of  fe- 
male licentiousness  that  are  abroad  in  France,  it  ap- 
pears almost  absurd  to  show  what  might  be  done  by 
female  morality — yet,  if  it  be  possible  to  breathe  a 
higher  and  purer  tone  into  French  society — and  this  is 
what  French  society  wants — if  it  be  possible  to  ap- 
proach in  peace  the  visions  of  St.  Just,  and  to  make 
virtue,  honesty,  and  justice,  "  the  order  of  the  day," — 
if  it  be  possible  to  make  that  change  in  manners  with- 
out which  the  laws  which  affect  the  surface  of  a  na- 
tion will  not  penetrate  to  its  core  ;  if  it  be  possible  to 
do  this — in  a  country  where  the  influence  of  the  sexes 
'enters  into  almost  every  crime,  it  must  be  by  making 
that  influence  serviceable  to  every  virtue. 

*  In  a  comitty  where  the  division  of  fortunes  rarely  throws  a  wo- 
man upon  the  world  in  an  utter  state  of  destitution,  there  is  httle  real 
necessity  for  the  vices  she  may  fall  into ;  pay,  that  any  clamour  should 
have  been  ever  so  indistinctly  raised,  for  perfect  equaUty  between  the 
sexes— shows  the  very  great  equality  that  in  France  really  exists ! 


VVOMKX.  103 

How  are  you  to  do  this  ? — It  is  not  so  much  the  fe- 
male mind  that  wants  cultivating,  it  is  the  female  char- 
acter that  wants  exalting.  The  doctrine  may  be  un- 
popular, but  what  you  have  to  do  cannot  be  done 
merely  by  the  elegances  of  literature  or  the  specula- 
tions of  science.  The  education  which  you  must  give 
— to  be  useful  must  be — moral :  must  be  an  education 
that  will  give  a  chivalric  love — such  love  as  women 
are  prone  to  feel — not  for  the  romantic  depravities  of 
life — not  for  the  mawkish  devilry  and  romance  of  a 
bourgeois  Byron,  but  for  what  is  great  and  noble  in  life 
— for  the  noble  heroism  of  a  Farcy,  for  the  political 
integrity  of  a  Berenger. 

The  sex  most  capable  of  rewarding  public  virtue, 
should  be  taught  to  honour  and  admire  public  virtue — 
should  be  taught  to  admire  public  virtue  as  it  was  for- 
merly taught  to  admire  accomplished  vice  ;  should  be 
taught  to  feel  for  the  patriot  what  it  feels  for  the  sol- 
dier, and  what  too  often  it  feels  for  the  roue.  The 
female  mind  should  be  hardened  and  strengthened  by 
logical  notions  of  right,  as  well  as  filled  with  the  fan- 
ciful theories  which  a  smattering  of  letters  and  philoso- 
phy inspires. 

I  fear  this  can  hardly  be  done  by  laws  ;  much  to- 
wards it,  however,  might  be  done  by  a  court  patroni- 
sing merit  and  honouring  principle ;  much  towards  it 
might  be  done  by  a  government  which,  extending  by 
its  nature  into  every  position  and  relation  of  society, 
has  an  opportunity  in  every  village  of  distinguishing 
merit  and  rewarding  virtue.  At  all  events,  whatever 
the  court  or  the  government  can  do  for  this  object — 
that  it  ought  to  do ;  for  there  is  no  influence  which 
should  not  be  employed  to  elevate  the  morality  of  a 
people  to  whom  Providence  has  denied  the  support  of 
religion  ; — and  the  influence  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking  is  an  influence  which  the  history  and  the 
character  of  the  French  ally  to  sanction,  and  which 
will  be  working  deeply  to  the  injury  of  the  state,  if  it 
be  not  turned  to  its  advantage. 


104  MILITARY    INFLUENCE. 


MILITARY  INFLUENCE. 

France  under  Richelieu — Under  Bonaparte — Now — Military  spirit 
of  each  epoch— The  camp  has  entered  into  the  city— The  duel  of 
the  Due  de  Beaufort  and  of  the  Editor  of  the  "  National"— The 
union  between  the  sword  and  the  tribune  impossible  in  England, 
may  be  possible  in  France— The  people  who  mourned  Foy,  La- 
marque,  Lafayette,  mourned  a  type  of  themselves. 

On  a  height  which  overlooked  the  plains  of  Rousil- 
lon,*  and  which  commanded  the  dark  ramparts  of  the 
city  he  was  besieging — a  cuirass  on  his  breast — his 
bald  head,  the  scene  and  centre  of  so  many  plans, 
great  and  terrible,  covered  with  the  red  cap  of  the 
church — stood  the  Cardinal — profound  minister,  astute 
favourite,  great  captain.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  him, 
and  he  could  be  seen  everywhere  ;  and  near  him  were 
the  generals  and  the  grand  seigneurs  of  the  monarchy, 
grand  seigneurs  whom  he  had  made  courtiers,  and 
around  him  the  chivalry  and  nobility  of  France.  Never 
did  a  more  loyal  troop  follow  their  sovereign  than  that 
which  galloped  after  King  Louis,  when,  the  eye  bright, 
and  the  hand  firm,  he  forgot  the  reveries  of  Chambord 
on  the  plains  of  Perpignan.  Many  and  brave  cava- 
liers were  there.  When  was  the  oriflamme  unfurled 
in  olden  times,  and  that  a  brilliant  army  was  not  ready 
to  follow  the  white  pennon  1  Yet,  the  army  of  France 
under  Richelieu  was  not  France.  The  priest  who 
humbled  the  aristocracy  had  not  ventured  to  open  its 
honours  to  the  nation. 

Twenty-one  years  ago,  in  that  palace  which  has 
since  known  more  than  one  master,  you  might  have 
seen  a  man,  at  once  a  prey  to  his  ambitious  follies  and 
his  reasonable  fears — with  the  brow  bent  and  the  lip 

*  See  the  eloquent  romance  of  Cinq-Mars. 


MILITARY  INFLUENCE.  105 

curled — now  pacing  his  chamber  for  hours — now- 
stretched  for  a  day  together,  in  still  and  mute  concen- 
tration of  thought,  over  immense  maps,  to  which  his 
conquests  had  given  a  new  surface — nervous,  restless, 
agitated,  as  he  said,  by  a  destiny  not  yet  accomplished 
— you  might  have  seen  that  mysterious  man,  whose 
sword  had  already  decided  the  fate  of  empires,  medi- 
tating, almost  in  spite  of  himself,  the  scheme  of  a  new 
conquest — of  a  conquest  cast  in  the  gigantic  mould  of 
his  own  genius,  and  which  was  to  submit  the  oldest 
dynasties  of  Europe  to  the  sway  of  an  empire  hardly 
yet  seen  rising  from  its  foundations.  Lo  !  he  wakes 
from  his  stupor.  "  Vive  la  France !  vive  la  grande 
armee !"  sounds  in  his  ear.  And  hark  to  the  tramp 
of  soldiers,  and  the  beating  of  drums !  and  already 
along  the  road  to  Germany,  behold  the  triumphal 
arches — which  should  have  been  reserved  for  his  re- 
turn !  And  now  may  you  see  those  stern  and  martial 
men,  accustomed  to  the  reception  of  conquerors — the 
head  high,  the  step  firm,  the  eye  determined,  the  lip 
compressed.  Now  may  you  see  those  men — men  of 
execution — men  who  only  live  in  the  hazards  of  ad- 
venturous action,  brandishing  their  arms  with  a  fero- 
cious gayety,  and  waiting  in  fixed  devotion  the  com- 
mands of  a  chief,  whose  star  has  never  yet  paled  on 
the  field  of  battle. 

Such  was  the  army  of  France  under  Napoleon ; 
but  the  army  of  France  under  Napoleon  was  not  the 
nation  of  France.  Bonaparte  reigned  in  an  immense 
camp,  which  was  guarded  from  the  approach  of  the 
people. 

"  La  France  n'est  qu'un  soldat,"  said  M.  de  Cha- 
teaubriand, in  the  first  of  those  eloquent  pamphlets 
which  showed  that  his  genius  was  not  on  the  decline. 
Yes,  the  army  of  France  is  now  the  nation  of  France  ; 
but  the  nation  of  France  is  more  than  an  army.  France 
is  not  only  a  soldier — France  is  more  than  a  soldier. 
But  do  not  expect  that  you  can  at  once  sweep  away 
the  effects  of  centuries  !  Do  not  expect  that  you  can 
make  a  nation  of  warriors,  by  the  scratch  of  a  pen,  a 
E3 


106  MILITARY    INFLUENCE. 

nation  of  legislators — rather  expect  that  you  will  give 
to  legislation  the  manners  of  war ;  that,  instead  of 
transporting  the  city  into  the  camp,  you  will  transport 
the  camp  into  the  city.*  The  ideas  of  the  one  will 
blend  themselves  with  the  institutions  of  the  other. 
The  feelings  which  Francis  carried  to  Pavia,  and  which 
made  Bonaparte  refuse  the  peace  of  Chatillon — the 
feelings  which  the  grand  seigneur  carried  to  Fontenoy, 
and  the  republican  soldier  to  Marengo, — these  feelings 
you  may  expect  to  find  in  the  cabinet  of  the  poet,  the 
deputy,  and  the  journalist  of  the  present  day.  The 
poet  will  fight  for  his  verses,  the  grave  constitutional 
senator  for  his  opinions ;  and  the  time  was  when  we 
might  have  seen  B.  Constant  himself — his  long  white 
hair  flowing  loosely  over  his  benevolent  countenance, 
seated  calmly  on  a  chair — a  crutch  in  one  hand,  a 
pistol  in  the  other,  and — an  enemy  at  twelve  paces. 

Do  not  laugh  at  this,  reader,  because  it  would  be 
ridiculous  in  England.  France  is  not  England,  and 
never  can  be.  Besides,  the  threads  and  cords  of 
society  are  so  mixed  and  intermingled,  that  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  trace  the  mysterious  force  which  each 
exercises  over  the  play  of  the  other ;  and  perchance 
it  is  this  very  military  spirit  which  now  pervades  all 

*  There  is  a  little  book  published  in  France,  called  "  Ahnanach  du 
Peuple,"  and  intended  to  make  the  government  popular  with  the  people, 
and  a  parallel  in  two  columns  is  drawn  between  the  government  of 
the  Restoration  and  the  goverrmient  of  July.     Here  I  ftnd — 

kSoiis  la  Restauration.  JDepuis  la  Revolution. 

Le  Gouvernement  de  la  Restau- '      Louis  Philippe  a  fait  replacer 
ration  et  les  armees  etrang^res    la  statue  du  grand  homme  sur  la 
avaient  fait  abattre   partout  les    colonne  de  la  Place  Vendome. 
statues  de  Napoleon — on  faisaii 
un  crime  aux  vieux  soldats  de  se 
souvenir  de  leur  Empereur  et  des 
victoires  de  Marengo,  d'Auster- 
litz,  et  de  Wagram. 

*  *  ♦  * 

So  far  so  good ! — ^but  what  fol- 
lows ? — 

*  *  *  * 

Notre  armee  etait  rdduite  a  L'armee  est  aujourd'hui  portde  i. 
250,000  hommes.  400,000  hommes  I !  ! 

I  should  Uke  to  see  the  government  in  England,  that  by  way  of 
makins^  itself  popular,  boasted  that  it  had  doubled  the  army. 


MILITARY    INFLUENCE.  107 

classes  and  professions  of  French  society,  and  which 
keeps  men  perpetually  mindful  of  the  regard  that  they 
owe  to  one  another — it  is  perchance  this  very  military 
spirit  which  maintains  order  in  the  movement  of  the 
civil  machine,  shocked  and  deranged  as  it  is,  and  as  it 
has  been ;  and  allows  a  universal  equality  to  exist, 
without  engendering  universal  confusion.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  in  the  various  forms  of  society  that  France 
has  yet  known,  that  part  of  society  governing  for  the 
moment,  has  always  been  agitated  by  the  same  spirit. 
Even  in  the  times  of  the  church,  we  have  the  old 
distich — 

*'Un  archev^que  est  amiral, 
Un  gros  ev^que  est  corporal ; 
Un  prelat  preside  aux  frontieres, 
Un  autre  a  des  troupes  guerriferes ; 
Un  capucin  pense  aux  combats, 
Un  cardinal  a  des  soldats." 

The  precepts  of  the  church  did  not  alter  the  char- 
.tA  \!er  of  the  people  ;  the  character  of  the  people  car- 
ried war  into  the  peaceful  bosom  of  the  church.* 

But  let  us  draw  a  parallel ;  it  will  show  the  genius 
of  the  French,  the  influences,  and  the  manners  of  two 
times. 

In  1652  the  Due  de  Beaufort  and  Due  de  Nemours 
met  behind  the  Hotel  de  Vendome  ;  the  Due  de  Beau- 
fort accompanied  by  the  Comte  de  Barry,  the  Due  de 
Nemours  by  the  Due  de  Villars.  In  addition  to  these 
noblemen  the  princes  brought  each  three  gentlemen 
of  their  suite.  They  fought  five  to  five,  and  the  Due 
de  Nemours  was  killed. 

This  happened  in  1652 — now  let  us  turn  back  to 
the  literary  quarrels  of  last  year,  and  the  manner  in 
which  they  were  settled.  The  Corsaire  laughs  at  the 
Duchesse  de  Berri,  and  the  editor  of  a  legitimist  paper 
calls  out  the  editor  of  the  Corsaire.     The  editor  of  the 

*  One  day  the  Abbe  Maury  was  followed  and  insulted  by  the  mob 
on  coming  out  of  the  Assembly.  One  man  came  up  to  him  and  said 
— "  Maury,  veux-tu  que  i'aille  te  servir  la  messe?" — **  Oui,"  replied 
Maury,  showing  two  pocket-pistols—"  Viens,  voila  mes  burettes." 


108  MILITARY    INFLUENCE. 

Corsaire  is  wounded ;  but,  though  his  hand  is  disabled, 
the  colour  of  his  ink  is  not  altered,  and  he  very  fairly 
says  that  he  will  have  his  joke  for  his  wound.  The 
duchesse  is  still  laughed  at  as  much  as  before. 

"  That  will  not  do,"  says  the  legitimist,  and  he  calls 
out  the  satirist  again ;  but  the  latter  shakes  his  head 
this  time,  and  shows  his  arm  in  a  sling.  "  He  can't 
always  be  lighting." — "  Ho  !  ho  !"  says  M.  Carrel, 
the  warlike  editor  of  the  National,  whose  semicolons 
almost  look  like  inverted  swords  ;  "  does  anybody  want 
to  fight  ?" — "  We  !  we  !"  the  National,  and  the  editors 
of  the  National,  "  we  will  fight  as  much  as  you  please." 
A  challenge  is  immediately  sent  by  a  gentleman,  and 
a  journalist,  whose  name  I  forget ;  but  in  the  mean 
time,  the  editors  of  the  liberal  papers  had  had  a  con- 
sultation together,  and  agreed  that  if  one  fought  all 
should  fight,  and  that  there  should  be  a  pitched  battle 
of  five  on  a  side.* 

Well,  what  is  the  difference  between  the  two  com- 
bats— the  journalists  five  on  a  side,  and  the  great  no- 
blemen five  on  a  side— except  that  the  one  were  jour- 
nalists and  the  others  great  noblemen  ?  But  the  journal 
of  to-day  answers  to  the  great  nobleman  of  ancient  time. 
We'll  take  the  "  National"  for  the  Due  de  Beaufort, 
for  instance.  The  "  National"  has  its  three  gentlemen 
attached  to  it  now,  as  the  Due  de  Beaufort  had  his  three 
gentlemen  formerly  attached  to  him. 

The  gentlemen  who  write  for  these  papers  answer 
— do  not  they  ? — to  the  gentlemen  who  were  attached 
to  the  houses  of  these  grand  seigneurs ! — the  great 
families  of  France — its  great  fortunes — are  gone. 
The  whole  power  of  government   and  of  society  is 

"  When  the  gentleman  commissioned  to  carry  a  hostile  message  to 
M.  Carrel  made  his  appearance,  he  was  informed  of  this  resolution, 
"  but,"  said  M.  C.  "  there  is  no  rule  without  its  exception.  I  will  be 
the  exception,  and  fight  your  friend,  sir,  as  a  particular  favour  to-mor- 
row morning."  They  fought  and  wounded  one  another  severely. 
But  the  great  battle  was  still  to  have  taken  place,  and  it  was  by  an 
accident  that  we  lost  the  spectacle  of  ten  gentlemen  of  the  press 
stripped  to  their  shirts,  and  sword  in  hand,  thrusting  quart  and  tierce 
up  to  their  knees  in  §now,  in  a  quarrel  respecting  the  virtue  of  the 
Duchesse  de  Berri. 


MILITARY    INLFUENCE.  109 

changed ;  but  the  feelings  formerly  represented  by  one 
class  have  found  their  way  into  another.  How  do 
you  account  for  this?  The  equality  which  existed 
among  the  French  nobility  has  descended  and  exists 
now  among  all  classes — the  military  spirit  and  the 
military  manners  of  France  have  done  the  same — for 
the  character  of  a  nation  will  penetrate  all  its  institu- 
tions— will  give  its  air  and  physiognomy  to  everj" 
form  of  government  which  that  nation  essays,  and 
even  to  which  the  character  of  that  nation  seems  op- 
posed.* 

But  it  is  not  only  that  we  find  the  soldier's  character 
stamped  on  the  citizen  ;  we  also  find  the  soldier  promi- 
nent in  the  different  pursuits  of  the  city. 

What  man  more  known  to  succeed  in  that  society 
where  a  certain  air  of  gayety  and  gallantry  captivates 
the  woman,  whose  reign  of  coquetry  is  drawing  to  a 
close,  and  excites  the  admiration  of  the  young  men 
who  are  just  beginning  to  be  a-la-mode,  than  Col. ? 

A  lively  and  agreeable  countenance,  over  which  an 
eye  that  flashes  fire  and  a  slight  but  dark  moustache 
throws  a  martial  air  of  energy  and  determination  :  that 
sort  of  wit  which  is  always  delivered  a-propos,  and 
which  rather  consists  in  having  something  on  all  occa- 
sions ready  to  say  than  in  the  precise  excellence  of 
what  is  said ;  a  peculiar  turn  of  phrase,  which  some- 
how or  other  gives  you  an  idea,  but  an  agreeable  idea, 
of  his  profession ;  and  a  manner  of  speaking,  soft  but 
short,  and  full  of  a  slight  emphasis,  which  as  he  pro- 
nounces his  words  gives  a  value  to  them  above  their 
meaning :  these  are  the  qualities,  assisted  by  an  im- 
perturbable impudence  and  an  excellent  education, 
which  have  given  to  this  hero  of  the  drawing-room  the 
notoriety  he  possesses.  Magnificent,  prodigal,  study- 
ing effect  in  his  expenses,  and  desirous  to  give  to  his 
premeditated  follies  the  air  of  a  careless  extravagance 
— famous  for  the  bills  he  owes  for  bonbons,  and  the 
money  he  has  spent  in  canes — famous  also  for  his  in- 

*  I  say  nothing  of  the  array,  and  its  spirit,  and  its  discipline,  since  I 
hope,  at  a  future  time,  to  go  more  fully  into  that  subject. 
10 


110  MILITAUY    INFLUENCK. 

trigues  behind  the  scenes  of  the  "  Fran^ais,"  in  the 
foyers  of  the  opera,  and  in  the  salons  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain — perfect  in  the  art  of  ripening  one  in- 
trigue before  he  passes  from  the  other,  and  deriving 
much  of  his  pleasure  from  the  pain  he  inflicts — ready 
to  give  offence,  to  take  offence — great  gambler,  great 
duellist,  and  fortunate  as  both — this  gentleman  is  the 
idol  of  a  circle  whose  praise  one  courts  at  twenty,  and 
despises  ten  years  afterward. 

Col.  is  another    character,  entirely  different 

from  the  one  I  have  just  been  describing ;  for  he  is 
the  model  of  a  soldier,  such  as  we  figure  a  soldier  in 
the  times  of  sensibility,  chivalry,  and  parfait  amour. 
Passionate,  nervous,  incapable  of  rest,  he  has  had  but 
two  idols, — peril  and  the  woman  he  loved.  Has  he 
no  softer  object  to  transport,  torment,  irritate,  and 
occupy  him  ?  malheur  a  Vetat ! — he  conspires.  But 
do  not  imagine  that  his  character  changes  in  his  new 
part ;  that  he  is  less  frank,  less  open ;  that  he  does 
not  say  all  that  he  thinks,  all  that  he  does.  Listen  to 
him !  he  will  tell  you  that  the  scheme  is  almost  or- 
ganized, that  so  many  men  are  ready  in  such  a  prov- 
ince, that  so  many  barrels  of  powder  are  concealed  in 
such  a  cellar  in  Paris  ;  that  the  day  is  fixed ;  that 
success  is  certain.  He  is  so  frank  that  he  deceives 
every  one.  The  police  are  disconcerted,  they  cannot 
believe  in  arrangements  that  are  publicly  talked  of  at 
Tortoni's  ;  a  shower  of  rain,  a  change  of  humour,  or 
the  sight  of  a  pretty  foot,  deranges  the  plot,  and  the 
conspiracy  sleeps  for  a  while  in  the  arms  of  a  new 
mistress. 

dreams  of  the  noblest  things,  and  as  his  physi- 
cal force  never  yields  before  his  desires,  he  imagines 
himself  capable  of  carrying  the  state  upon  his  shoul- 
ders, of  restoring,  destroying ;  his  breast  is  a  volcano 
of  resolutions,  of  plans  half  organized,  long  meditated, 
and  then  in  turn  abandoned.  But,  if  you  told  him 
that  he  mistook  restlessness  for  activity,  discontent  for 
ambition,  a  love  of  change  for  a  love  of  liberty,  and 


MILITARY    INFLUENCE.  Ill 

the  follies  of  a  vague  enthusiasm  for  the  concentrated 
plans  of  genius,  he  would  believe  that  you  totally  mis- 
understood his  character,  and  rush  with  redoubled 
passion  into  some  new  absurdity,  in  order  to  prove 
that  he  deserved  the  title  of  "  wise  and  great"  which 
you  refused  to  him. 

This  man  is  irritable,  jealous,  vain,  and  easily 
affronted :  but  if  he  knows  you  well,  his  anger  soon 
ceases  ;  for  he  is  generous,  tender,  and  desirous  of 
communicating  his  emotions.  His  friends  are  few ; 
these  he  loves  passionately,  and  they  are  generally  in 
a  worse  position  than  himself — perhaps  because  such 
are  more  likely  to  forgive  the  irregularities  of  his  tem- 
per, and  to  worship  the  virtues  he  possesses  ;  perhaps 
because  he  has  a  sort  of  instinctive  adoration  for 
poverty,  which  corresponds  with  the  rudeness  and  at 
the  same  time  awakens  the  kindness  of  his  nature. 
With  the  rest  of  his  sex  he  is  boastful,  overbearing, 
full  of  his  own  merits  and  exploits  ;  always  talking  of 
the  army,  "  the  great  army,"  for  he  despises  sedentary 
pursuits,  and  deems  that  incapability  of  repose  is  an 
aptitude  for  action.  With  women  his  heart  melts  :  he 
is  all  softness,  delicacy,  gentleness.  If  he  speak  with 
affection,  the  tears  are  in  his  eyes  ;  if  he  love,  his 
passion  knows  no  bounds  ;  his  gallantry  is  romantic, 
ardent,  respectful ;  his  features  are  strong  and  coarse, 
his  person  uncouth  and  gigantic  ;  but  if  Louis  XIV. 
were  alive,  he  would  have  no  occasion  to  tell  the  ladies 
of  his  court  "  qu'il  etoit  le  plus  beau, — parcequ'il  etoit 
leplus  brave  de  son  royaume."  Plain,  slovenly,  savage, 
he  has  been  listened  to  by  the  most  spiritual  and  ele- 
gant women  of  his  time  ;  vain,  disinterested,  brave, 
and  passionate  to  excess,  he  has  in  turn  been  deemed 
a  hero  when  he  boasted  of  his  exploits,  an  adventurer 
when  he  refused  to  receive  a  fortune,  a  man  full  of 
ambition  when  he  was  only  occupied  by  love.  He 
seems  an  anachronism  in  his  time :  he  represents  a 
part  of  it. 

Alike  dissimilar  from  the  two  persons  whose  sketches 


112  MILITARY    INFLUENCE. 

I  have  just  been  giving,   General obtained  and 

deserved  a  more  solid  reputation  than  either.  His 
life  was  not  formed  on  the  scandalous  memoirs  of  a 
Due  de  Richelieu,  nor  would  it  afford  an  episode  to  the 
romance  of  Amadis  in  the  desert.  Gallant,  courteous, 
endowed  with  equal  firmness  and  reflection;  the  rigid 
observer  of  subordination  in  the  camp,  the  warm 
defender  of  liberty  in  the  tribune  ;  sincere,  independ- 
ent, unaffected — uniting  the  somewhat  brusque  manner 
of  Napoleon's  soldier  with  the  polished  address  that 
would  have  charmed  the  court  of  Louis  XV. — in  my 

recollections  of  General ,  I  almost  see  a  militaiy 

model  for  the  rising  generation  of  his  country.  When 
I  knew  this  very  remarkable  person,  fatigue,  sickness, 
and  meditation — the  toils  of  war,  and  the  changes  of 
climate,  had  bronzed  the  fine,  and  delicate,  and  woman- 
like features  of  his  youth,  and  rendered  a  countenance 
which  was  naturally  effeminate,  severe  and  stern. 

General was  acquainted  with  all  subjects,  and 

spoke  well  upon  all ;  but  his  sentiments  did  not  come 
from  him  with  that  easy  flow,  or  with  that  passionate 
vehemence,  which  marks  the  man  of  imagination  and 
enthusiasm :  they  were  rather  delivered  in  observa- 
tions, separate  and  apart,  observations  remarkable  for 
the  tact  with  which  they  were  turned,  acute,  elegant, 
and  especially  satiric.  The  great  man  of  his  time — 
legislator,  warrior,  statesman — he  could  not  have  been 
either  of  those  men  in  whom  these  characters  were 
most  remarkably  found  conjoined.  More  vain  and 
imperious  than  the  simple  Washington  ;  more  generous 
and  patriotic  than  the  selfish  and  ambitious  Napoleon ; 
more  cold  and  more  proud  than  the  fanatical  and  deceit- 
ful Cromwell ;  he  was  too  haughty  to  have  sunk 
calmly  into  the  private  citizen  of  the  republic,  too  just 
to  have  mounted  the  throne  of  the  empire,  too  eloquent 
to  have  taken  the  mace  from  the  table  of  a  House  of 
Commons.  Fond  of  honour,  he  would  have  sacrificed 
it  to  liberty  ;  fond  of  liberty,  he  might  have  sacrificed 
it  to  glory  ;  the  statesman,  he  would  have  been  the 
soldier ;  but  in  the  camp  he  would  not  have  resigned 
the  Chamber. 


MILITARY  INFLUENCE.  113 

Fortunate  in  most  things,  Gen. was  more  espe- 
cially fortunate  in  living  at  the  moment  most  favourable 
to  his  genius,  and  in  dying  at  the  moment  most  suscep- 
tible to  his  loss. 

These  are  characters  taken  from  the  society  of 
France,  and  thus  we  see — now  in  the  journalist  with 
the  sword  in  his  hand— now  in  the  general  delivering 
his  speech — the  same  influence  still  predominating ; 
and  let  it  be  so  ! 

There  are  political  truths  equally  applicable  to  all 
states  arrived  at  a  similar  epoch  of  civilization ;  but 
they  will  vary  in  their  application  according  to  the 
history,  the  customs,  the  ideas  they  meet  with  among 
the  people  to  whom  they  are  applied.  To  these  varia- 
tions give  a  full  and  unlimited  scope :  it  is  the  only 
method  by  which  you  can  blend  the  ideas  of  the  few 
with  the  habits  of  the  many,  and  give  the  life  which 
you  derive  from  ancient  customs  to  a  new  constitution. 

Where  the  same  species  of  government  finds  a  new 
soil,  a  different  genius  presides  over  its  foundations. 
Thus  may  we  see  two  oaks,  whose  height  and  grandeur 
are  nearly  the  same,  lifting  with  equal  majesty  their 
heads  to  heaven,  but  their  roots  will  all  the  while  be 
taking  a  different  course ;  for  in  nature  and  society 
there  is  a  secret  sympathy — and  as  the  fibres  of  the 
tree  will,  if  they  meet  a  stone  or  a  ditch,  strike  under 
it,  in  order  to  escape  the  obstacle  or  avoid  the  cold  ; 
so  the  interior  course  of  institutions,  regulated  by 
obscure  causes,  is  oftentimes  shaped  in  darkness,  and 
escaping  your  observation,  defies  your  control. 

France,  then,  may  yet  be  able  to  blend  a  military 
spirit  with  a  free  constitution,  and  the  sword  which, 
appearing  as  an  accident  in  England,  banished  the 
mace  of  civil  authority  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
seen  here  as  a  custom,  may  lie  side  by  side  with  it  in 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  This  idea,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  should  be  present  to  the  monarch  who  governs  the 
French  :  the  people  who  have  just  mourned  Lamarque 
10* 


114  MILITARY  INFLUENCE. 

and  Lafayette,  saw  in  the  general  and  the  legislatof 
the  type  of  their  own  mind.* 

♦  Time  that  France  has  passed  in  war  from  the  Thirteenth  to  the  Eight 
eenth  Century. 

In  the  fourteenlli  century,  forty -three  years  of  war ;  i.  e.  five  of  civil 
vvar,  thirteen  of  war  off  the  territory,  twenty-five  of  war  on  the 
territory  of  France. — In  this  period  there  were  fourteen  great  battles. 
— among  others,  that  of  Contrai,  where  the  Flemish  won  four  hundred 
pair  of  spurs  from  the  French  knights  ;  and  that  of  Poictiers,  where 
the  King  of  France  was  taken  prisoner. 

In  the  fifteenth  century,  seventy-one  years  ol  war  ;  i.  e.  thirteen  of 
civil  war,  forty-three  of  war  on  the  territory,  and  fifteen  of  war 
carried  out  of  the  territory  of  France.  Iio  this  period  there  were 
eleven  great  battles — Agincourt,  Castillon,  and  Monthery  were  among 
the  number. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  eighty-five  years  of  war ;  i.  e.  forty- 
four  of  war  off  the  French  territory,  eight  of  war  on  the  French 
territory,  and  thirty-three  of  civil  and  religious  war. — In  this  period 
there  were  twenty-seven  great  battles. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  sixty-nine  years  of  war  ;  i.  e.  eleven  of 
civil  war,  fifty-two  of  war  carried  off  the  French  territory,  and  six  of 
religious  war. — In  this  period  there  were  thirty-nine  great  battles. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  fifty-eight  years  of  war ;  i.  e.  one  of 
religious  war,  six  of  civil  war,  and  fifty-one  of  war  off  the  French 
territory. 

Thus  in  the  space  of  five  centuries  we  have  : 

Civil  war 35  years. 

Rehgious  war 40  years. 

On  the  French  territory 76  years. 

Off  the  French  territory 175  years. 

Total 326  years. 

During  which  time  were  fought  one  hundred  and  eighty-four  great 
battles. 


LITERARY  INFLUENCE. 


The  anniversary  of  Moliere — Speech  of  M.  Thiers — The  man  of 
letters  is  what  the  Baron  and  the  Courtier  were— The  hterary  man 
in  France  is  what  he  is  not  in  America,  Germany,  and  England — 
Election  of  Finsbury — The  false  conclusions  drawn  during  the  re- 
form bill,  as  to  the  respect  which  would  be  afterward  felt  for  men 
of  letters— How  a  love  of  letters  grew  up  in  France — The  causes 
that  extend  a  power  need  not  be  those  which  have  created  it — If 
you  wish  to  create  a  love  for  the  arts  and  for  science  in  England, 
how  you  must  do  it — Dr.  Bowring's  evidence  on  silk  trade — What 
are  the  advantages  that  England  would  derive  from  a  taste  for  the 
arts — How  men  of  science  and  letters  have  been  encouraged  in 
France — List — Public  establishments  in  France — Ecole  des  arts  et 
metiers — What  is  honoured  by  the  state  is  honoured  in  society — 
Situation  of  literary  men  in  France  and  hterary  men  in  England — 
Unhappy  situation  of  the  latter — Causes — The  French  niight  even 
derive  more  advantages  than  they  have  yet  done  from  their  national 
love  of  science  and  letters — New  aristocracy  that  might  be  base;  I 
upon  it. 

I6th  January^  1832.  It  is  the  anniversary  of  Mo« 
Here "  Le  Theatre  Frangais  joue  '  le  Misan- 
thrope' et  '  le  Malade  Imaginaire,'  avec  la  ceremonie. 
Mademoiselle  Mars,  et  I'elite  de  la  troupe  joueront  dans 
cette  representation.  L'anniversaire  de  la  naissance 
de  Moliere  sera  aussi  celebre  au  Faubourg  St.  Ger- 
main. L'Odeon  jouera  '  Tartuffe'  et '  le  Medecin  mal- 
gre  lui.'  "*  I  copy  this  paragraph  from  the  newspaper. 
Every  year,  on  the  same  day,  is  observed  and  cele- 
brated the  birthday  of  Moliere,  by  the  great  theatre  of 
France.!  On  this  day  one  of  his  comedies  is  invari- 
ably given,  and  the  best  performers,  male  and  female, 

*  "  The  French  Theatre  will  give  '  The  Misanthrope'  and  '  The 
Malade  Imaginaire,'  with  the  usual  ceremony.  Mademoiselle  Mars 
and  the  ilite  of  the  company  will  perfonn  in  this  representation.  The 
anniversary  of  Moliere  will  also  be  celebrated  in  the  Faubourg  St. 
Germain.  The  Odeon  will  give  the  '  Tartuffe'  and  the  •  Medecin 
malgr6  lui.' " 

t  The  great  comedian's  bust  is  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  theatre ; 
the  comedians,  all  in  the  costume  of  some  of  the  great  parts  in  Mohere, 
walk  in  procession  round  the  theatre,  salute  the  assembly,  and  depose, 
one  after  the  other,  a  laurel  branch  at  the  foot  of  the  statue. 


116  LITERARY    INFLUENCE. 

appear  in  any  part,  however  inconsiderable,  that  may 
be  assigned  to  them.  Some  piece,  made  for  the  oc- 
casion, as  the  "  Menage  de  Moliere,"  follows,  or  an  ode 
in  honour  of  the  great  French  dramatist  is  recited,  and 
the  evening  concludes  with  the  ceremony,  sacred  in 
the  place  where  it  is  performed,  "  the  Crowning  of  the 
Statue  of  Moliere,"  amid  the  shouts  and  the  tears,  the 
religious  joy  and  veneration,  with  which  the  populace 
of  Paris  hail  a  triumph  of  the  arts. 

One  of  the  influences  most  powerful  in  France,  and 
most  visible  in  every  society  of  France,  is  undoubt- 
edly the  influence  of  letters.  "  I  begin  my  political 
life,"  said  M.  V.  Hugo,  when  his  tragedy  of  "  Le  Roi 
s'amuse"  was  prohibited ;  and  in  a  country  where  the 
public  take  so  deep  and  lively  an  interest  in  literature, 
the  prohibition  of  a  tragedy  is,  in  fact,  the  commence- 
ment of  a  political  life.  At  the  very  moment  I  am 
writing,  the  words  yet  ring  in  my  ear  which  I  heard 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  members  address  the 
other  evening  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  : — "And  I 
— I  who  am  speaking  to  you,  '  messieurs,'  when  peo- 
ple talk  to  you  of  an  aristocracy,  what  am  I  ?  What 
am  I,  whom  you  think  worthy  of  your  attention  ;  who 
take  my  place  on  yonder  bench,  by  the  side  of  men 
who  have  gained  battles  ;*  by  the  side  of  men  bear- 
ing the  noblest  namesf  in  France  ?  What  am  I, 
'messieurs,'  but  an  humble  man  of  letters,  whom  a 
'little  talent,  kindly  noticed,  introduced  among  you  ?" 

There  are  countries,  the  monarchs  of  which  show 
an  enlightened  sense  of  the  dignity  with  which  men 
of  learning  and  science  decorate  their  dominions — 
there  are  countries  in  which  you  will  find  ambassa- 
dors and  ministers  as  eminent  for  their  literary  attain- 
ments as  for  their  high  political  station ;  but  in  no 
country  do  literature  and  science  open  so  free,  and 
honourable,  and  independent  a  career  as  in  that  France 
which  M.  Thiers  addressed  from  the  National  Tri- 
bune, in  the  few  touching  words  that  I  have  just  cited. 

*  Looking  at  Marshal  Soult. 
f  Looking  at  the  Due  de  Broghe. 


LITERARY    INFLUENCE.  117 

•'Overturn  the  monarchy: — Give  me  the  liberty  of 
*.h;e  press,  and  I  will  restore  it  in  six  months,"*  was 
the  noble  expression  of  an  author  confident  in  his 
talent,  confident  in  the  genius  of  his  countrymen,  and 
only  wrong  in  the  folly  of  his  cause.  A  great  writer 
in  France  is  a  great  power.  The  baron  of  feudal 
times  sallied  forth  against  his  neighbour,  or  his  sove- 
reign, with  his  armed  retainers  at  his  heels ;  and  in 
those  days  of  violence  the  goodness  of  the  right  de- 
pended on  the  goodness  of  the  sword  ;  the  courtier  in 
France,  who  succeeded  the  baron,  abandoned  the 
glaive  and  the  gauntlet — for  the  Graces — and  trusted 
to  an  appropriate  smile  and  a  well-turned  compliment 
for  the  success  of  his  career.  But  mark  yonder  pale 
young  man  ;  feeble  in  his  person,  slovenly  in  his  dress 
— holding  his  pen  with  a  trembling  hand,  doubled  up 
over  his  paper!  That  young  man  has  come  from 
some  mean  abode,  from  some  distant  province,  where, 
amid  penury  and  insignificance,  with  his  eyes  now 
fixed  on  the  page  of  history,  now  on  the  heading  of  a 
newspaper,  he  has  long  indulged  his  reveries  of  immor- 
tality and  his  hopes  of  power.f  In  him  see  the  baron 
and  the  courtier  of  the  day ;  he  attacks  the  monarch 
or  the  minister,  but  it  is  not  with  the  falchion  and  the 
lance.  He  glides  into  the  cabinet  and  the  boudoir, 
not  in  a  powdered  wig  and  an  embroidered  waistcoat, 
but  bound  in  vellum.  He  does  not  measure  his  force 
or  his  address  with  yours,  but  his  intelligence  :  he  is 
the  person  to  admire ;  he  is  the  person  to  fear ;  he  is 
the  person — in  France  which  he  is  nowhere  else. 

He  is  the  person  in  France  that  he  cannot  be  in 
America,  for  there  is  no  superstition  for  the  arts  in 
America;    the  vanity  of  wealth,  the   natural  conse- 

*  M.  de  Chateaubriand. 

t  Mirabeau,  consulted  by  the  Queen  of  France  ;  and  the  Institut 
admitted  to  the  Council  of  Napoleon  : — these  are  the  pictures  present 
to  the  young  man  who,  in  some  remote  village,  surrounded  by  pov- 
erty, and  bom  a  httle  above  the  plough,  pursues  with  indefatigable 
f)erseverance  studies  which  he  sees  every  day  conducting  his  fel- 
ows  to  the  highest  situations  in  letters  and  the  state,  and  which,  if 
sometimes  a  cause  of  misery  to  himself,  are  still  a  source  of  energy, 
and  strength,  and  prosperity  to  his  country. 
34 


118  LITERARY    INFLUENCE. 

quence  of  a  nation  depending  wholly  on  its  industry 
and  its  commerce,  predominates  over  the  diviner 
thoughts  and  more  graceful  occupations  of  letters. 
He  is  the  person  in  France  that  he  cannot  be  in  Ger- 
many, for  in  Germany  a  "  ron"  before  your  name  is  a 
matter  of  social  necessity;  for  in  Germany,  to  be 
"  well  born,"  or  to  be  "  nobly  bom,"  or  to  be  "  right- 
nobly  born,"  is  a  matter  submitted  to  historical  rules, 
and  the  superscription  of  a  letter  demands  the  pro- 
foundest  study,  the  most  accurate  knowledge,  the  nicest 
distinctions.  He  is  the  person  in  France  that  he  can- 
not be  in  England — for  in  England,  politics  is  the  only 
passion  of  the  men,  fashion  the  only  idol  of  the  women 
— for  in  England,  to  be  a  blockhead  is  far  more  par- 
donable than  to  live  in  a  bad  street — for  in  England, 
to  have  voted  against  the  house  and  window-tax  would 
make  you  of  far  more  consequence  than  to  have  writ- 
ten the  profoundest  work  on  legislation. 

Observe !  Messrs.  Cousin,  and  Villemain,  and  Royer 
Collard  are  made  peers,  because  they  are  very  learned 
and  eloquent  professors.  M.  Lamartine  is  elected  a 
representative  of  the  French  people  on  account  of  his 
poems — M.  Arago  on  account  of  his  mathematical 
acquisitions — M.  Thiers  on  account  of  his  talent  as  a 
journalist  and  an  historian.  This  takes  place  in 
France — and  what  takes  place  in  England  ? 

THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  POLL  AT  A  LATE  CONTEST. 

Buncombe  _         .         -  -  2,497 

Pownall  -         -         -  -  1,839 

Wakley  ...  -  677 

BABBAGE  -         -         .  .  383 

The  most  distinguished  man  of  science  ai  this  mo- 
ment in  England,  appears  upon  the  hustings  as  can- 
didate for  a  great  metropolitan  district ;  he  professes 
liberal  but  moderate  opinions,  such  as  a  life  of  reflec- 
tion usually  engenders.  How  is  he  received  ?  Do  the 
people  feel  grateful  and  flattered  by  the  philosopher's 
appearing  among  them  as  a  solicitor  for  popular  hon- 


LITEHARV    INFLUENCK.  119 

ours  ?  Do  tliey  esteem  his  search  after  their  favour  as 
ahuost  the  highest  compliment  that  could  be  paid  to 
popular  rights  ^  Are  they  sensible  to  the  circumstance, 
that  the  individual  who  appears  before  them  and  says, 
"  I  prefer  the  pursuit  which  you  can  give  me — I  prefer 
the  honours  that  you  can  confer  upon  me — I  prefer  the 
life  that  is  to  be  passed  in  combating  for  your  rights 
and  your  rewards,  to  the  pursuits  which  have  made  me 
known  throughout  Europe,  to  the  honours  which  would 
be  showered  upon  me  by  every  learned  corporation — 
to  the  life  that  in  calm  and  quiet  would  lead  me  to  an 
immortal  reputation" — Are  they  even  aware  that  the 
person  who  says,  or  might  say  all  this,  is  raising  to 
the  highest  possible  pitch  the  character  and  the  career 
of  a  free  state  ?  Are  they  proud  and  conscious  of  the 
fact,  that  the  man  who  offers  to  sacrifice  his  energies 
to  their  cause  has — at  the  very  moment  he  does  so — 
the  eyes  of  the  learned  and  the  wise  directed  from 
every  corner  of  Europe  on  his  labours  ? 

No,  they  see  nothing  of  this ;  they  feel  nothing  of 
this.  Mr.  Buncombe's  abilities  and  principles  fully 
justify,  in  my  opinion,  the  choice  of  his  electors. — I  do 
not  speak  of  Mr.  Duncombe  then, — but  mark !  the  un- 
known Tory,  the  violent  and  eloquent  demagogue — 
every  kind  of  man  is  preferred  to  the  man  of  science 
— and  the  person  who,  perhaps,  more  than  any  other 
without  exception  in  this  country,  would,  if  he  went  to 
Paris,  or  even  to  Berlin,  or  Petersburg,  or  Vienna,  be 
courted  and  honoured  by  all  who  themselves  received 
honour  and  courtship,  hardly  obtains  one-half  of  the 
votes  of  any  other  description  of  persons  in  the  popular 
borough  of  Finsbury  !* 

*  I  know  there  are  some  little  minds  ready  at  once  to  say — a  man 
of  science  is  not  fitting  to  be  a  politician.  No  view  is  so  narrow,  so 
contrary  to  truth,  to  history,  and  to  experience.  In  the  three  greatest 
politicians  and  generals  of  past  times — Alexander,  Julius  Csssar,  and 
Napoleon  Bonaparte — their  love  of  letters  and  their  knowledge  of 
science  are  at  least  as  conspicuous  as  their  other  attainments.  The 
greatest  orators  and  politicians  that  England  has  ever  produced — 
Hampden,  Shaftesbury,  Bolingbroke,  Pulteney,  the  Pitts,  Fox, 
Shendan,   Windham,    Canning,    Burke,  and,  let    me    add,  Lord 


120  LITEKARY    INFLUENCl.. 

I  dwell  the  more  upon  this,  because  the  most  crude 
conclusions  are  drawn  frequently  from  what  are  falsely 
seen  as  analogous  facts.  In  the  discussion  on  the  re- 
form bill,  it  was  frequently  argued  that  if  the  people  of 
England  had  the  free  choice  of  their  representatives, 
they  would  be  sure  to  choose  men  of  science  and  liter- 
ature, because  the  people  in  France  did — and  this 
passed  for  excellent  reasoning !  Nay,  if  any  one  had 

Brougham,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  Lord  John  Russell,  and  Sir 
John  Hobhouse — have  all  been  men  of  letters  and  of  business  ;  sin- 
cerely and  deeply  attached  to  academical  as  to  political  pursuits  ;  and 
finding  time,  as  all  men  of  active  and  clear  minds  do  find  time,  for 
elevating  and  enlarging  their  views,  for  cultivating  and  improving 
their  judgment  and  their  fancy,  as  well  as  for  handling  and  grappling 
with  state  aflfairs.  "  As  for  matter  of  policy  and  government,"  says 
Bacon,  "  that  learning  should  rather  hurt  than  enable  thereunto,  is  a 
thing  very  improbable ;  we  see  it  is  accounted  an  error  to  commit  a 
natural  body  to  empiric  physicians,  who  commonly  have  a  few 
pleasing  receipts,  whereupon  they  are  confident  and  advantageous, 
but  know  neither  the  causes  of  diseases,  nor  the  complexions  of  pa- 
tients, nor  peril  of  accidents,  nor  the  true  method  of  cures  ;  we  see  it 
is  a  hke  error  to  rely  upon  advocates  and  lawyers,  who  are  only  men 
of  -practice,  and  not  grounded  in  their  books,  who  are  many  times 
easily  surprised  when  matter  falleth  out  besides  their  experience,  to 
the  prejudice  of  the  causes  they  handle ;  so,  by  like  reason,  it  cannot 
be  but  a  matter  of  doubtful  consequence,  if  states  be  managed  by 
empiric  statesmen,  not  well  mingled  with  men  grounded  in  learning. 
But  contrariwise,  it  is  almost  without  instance  contradictory,  that  ever 
any  government  was  disastrous  that  was  in  the  hands  of  learned 
governors.  For  however  it  hath  been  ordinary  with  politic  men  to  ex- 
tenuate and  disable  learned  men  by  the  names  of  pedants,  yet  in  the 
records  of  time  it  appeareth  in  many  particulars,  that  the  government 
of  princes  in  minority  (notwithstanding  the  infinite  disadvantage  of 
that  kind  of  state)  have  nevertheless  excelled  the  government  of 
princesof  mature  age,  even  for  the  reason  which  they  seek  to  traduce, 
which  is,  that  by  that  occasion  the  state  hath  been  in  the  hands  of 
pedants.  Nay,  let  a  man  look  into  the  government  of  the  bishops  of 
Rome,  as  by  name,  into  the  government  of  Pius  Quintus  and 
Sextus  Quintus,  in  our  times,  who  were  both,  at  their  entrance, 
esteemed  but  as  pedantical  friars,  and  he  shall  find  that  such  popes 
do  greater  things,  and  proceed  upon  truer  principles  of  state  than 
those  who  have  ascended  to  the  papacy  from  an  education  and 
breeding  in  affairs  of  state  and  courts  of  princes.  Neither  can  the 
experience  of  one  man's  life  furnish  examples  and  precedents  for  the 
events  of  one  man's  hfe :  for  as  it  ha])peneth  sometimes  that  the 
grandchild,  or  other  descendant,  resembleth  the  ancestor  more  than 
the  son  !  so  many  times  occurrences  of  present  times  may  sort  better 
with  ancient  examples  than  with  those  of  the  latter  or  immediate 
times  ;  and  lastly,  the  wit  of  one  man  can  no  more  countervail  learn- 
ing, than  one  man's  means  can  hold  way  with  a  common  purse," — 
and  so  he  continues  proving  the  activity  of  learned  men  in  public 
affairs. — See  Bacon's  Advancem£nt  of  Learning. 


LITERACY    INFLUENCF.  121 

possessed  sufficient  information  for  this,  he  might  have 
pushed  the  argument  still  further,  and  proved  pretty 
plausibly,  that  what  happened  in  France  would  happen 
in  a  far  greater  degree  in  England.  For  instance, 
there  rises  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons ! — 
"  Sir,  the  honourable  gentleman  says,  that  if  the  people 
of  England  had  the  choice  of  their  representatives, 
men  of  science  and  letters  would  be  excluded  from  this 
assembly.  Was  ever  any  thing  so  absurd  ?  I  beg  gen- 
tlemen not  to  be  drawn  away  by  idle  theories  and 
vague  declamations.  I  beg  them  to  pay  attention  to 
facts.  I  beg  them  to  see  what  happens  from  the  people 
choosing  their  representatives  in  one  country,  and  then 
draw  their  conclusions  as  to  what  would  happen  in 
another.  When  we  are  talking  of  England,  let  us 
look  to  France.  In  France,  it  is  undeniable,  that  men 
of  letters  and  science  are  actually  hunted  out  of  their 
retreats,  in  order  to  be  honoured  with  popular  favours. 
Who  does  not  remember  M.  Royer  Collard,  that  learned 
professor,  a  man  of  no  violent  opinions,  being  chosen 
by  eight  different  colleges  ?  Well,  sir,  but  are  we  less 
likely  to  choose  men  of  letters  and  science  than  the 
people  of  France  ?  Let  us,  I  say  again,  look  to  facts. 
In  France,  there  is  not  more  than  one  person  in  three 
who  can  read  and  write.  But  in  England  and  Wales, 
taken  upon  an  average,  we  find  out  of  14,000,000, 
nearly  7,000,000,  that  is  nearly  one  in  every  two,  who 
receive  education.  Is  it  not  likely,  is  it  not  certain, 
that  the  most  educated  people  will  set  the  highest  value 
on  the  acquisitions  of  knowledge  ?  (Hear,  hear  !)  Is 
not  this  clear,  is  not  this  incontrovertible  ?  (Hear,  hear, 
hear.)  Sir,  I  say,  that  that  which  happens  in  France 
will  happen  in  a  greater  degree  in  England,  and  that 
the  honourable  gentleman  is  as  wrong  in  his  conclu- 
sions as  he  was  violent  in  announcing  them."  (Loud 
cheers.)  "  Those  were  ver}^ sensible  remarks." — "Yes, 
yes,  he  gave  it  him  well,"  say  two  old  whig  gentle- 
men, on  the  third  of  the  treasury  benches.  Yet  never 
was  there  such  stuff,  such  miserable  twopenny  halt- 
penny  twaddle  !     Never  was  man  more  completely 


122  LITERARY    INFLUENCE. 

wrong  than  the  orator  whom  we  will  paint  triumphing, 
if  you  please,  in  his  success — never  was  man  so 
wrong — And  why?  For  the  best,  and  shortest,  and 
simplest,  and  most  incontrovertible  of  all  reasons — be- 
cause he  was  wrong ;  because  the  people  of  England, 
though  there  are  more  of  them  who  read  and  write  than 
there  are  of  the  people  of  France,  have  not,  and  will 
not,  and  cannot  have  for  long  years  to  come,  that  love 
for  letters  and  the  arts,  that  respect  for  men  of  science 
and  letters  which  the  French  have,  and  which  the 
French  had — when,  in  caligraphy  and  orthography, 
they  were  many  times  more  ignorant  than  they  are  at 
present. 

It  is  folly  to  talk  of  reading  and  writing  being  alone 
sufficient  to  prevent  crime.  It  is  folly  to  imagine  that 
reading  and  writing  will  necessarily  open  men's  minds 
m  an  extraordinary  degree  to  the  perception  of  the  ele- 
gant, and  to  a  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  the  sub- 
lime. It  will  do  this  to  a  certain  degree  ;  but  people  do 
not  perceive  that  there  will  be  other  and  pre-existent 
causes  M^hich  will  influence  the  tastes,  and  the  feelings, 
and  the  judgment,  which  writing  and  reading  are  cal- 
culated to  produce — and  that  history,  and  society,  and 
conquest,  and  even  geographical  position,  all  exercise 
as  great  an  influence  upon  the  knowledge  derived  from 
writing  and  reading,  as  the  mere  knowledge  of  writing 
and  reading  exercises  upon  the  mind  itself.  They  do 
not  see  this  ;  neither  do  they  see  that  writing  and  read- 
ing form  but  a  small  part  of  the  education  of  the  man 
who  also  sees,  and  hears,  and  acts.  No,  nor  do  they 
even  recognise  that  the  natural  perceptions  of  some 
men,  and  of  some  races  of  men,  are  quicker,  and  keener, 
and  more  acute  than  others — more  likely  to  be  acted 
upon  by  what  pleases  the  senses  than  by  what  excites 
the  mind — more  likely  to  be  afl^ected  by  the  beautiful 
than  by  the  useful — by  the  showy  than  by  the  solid. 
That  there  are  two  countries,  in  each  of  which  a  cer- 
tain number  of  the  people  read  and  write — proves 
what  ?  That  in  these  two  countries  this  certain  number 
do  write  and  read — it  proves  this — it  proves  nothing 


LITERARY    INFLUENCK.  123 

more  than  this — unless  you  can  show  that  in  every 
other  respect  the  people  in  the  two  countries  are  alike. 
(f  the  French  have  an  ardent  passion  for  literature,  a 
vast  respect  for  men  of  letters,  it  is  from  a  long  series 
of  facts,  from  a  long  train  of  events,  as  well  as  from  a 
peculiar  disposition  with  which  these  events  and  these 
facts  naturally  coincide.  Here  is  a  passion,  here  is  a 
respect,  which  an  increase  of  education,  a  spread  of 
knowledge  will  tend  to  increase  and  spread,  because 
to  that  education  and  to  that  knowledge  an  impulse  has 
been  already  given — because  the  feelings  originally 
existed  in  a  small  circle,  which  are  therefore  natu- 
rally extended,  as  that  small  circle  extends,  into  a  large 
one. 

When  Louis  the  XIV.  said  to  Racine,  "What 
man  do  you  think  the  greatest  glory  to  my  reign  ?"  and 
Racine  answered,  "  Moliere,"  there  was  no  free  press, 
no  national  education,  none  of  those  vast  and  noisy 
engines  at  work  by  which  we  produce  from  the  minds 
of  the  masses  what  is  called  public  opinion. 

Now,  as  I  said  somewhere  in  the  beginning  of  this 
book,  that  in  a  vain  nation,  sentiments  and  habits  de- 
scend from  the  higher  classes  to  the  lower,  as  in  a 
voluptuous  nation  they  ascend  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher.  It  was  the  policy  of  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIV. 
— it  was  the  taste  of  the  regent,  and  the  embroidered 
philosophy  of  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  that  gave  to  cer- 
tain classes  that  love  for  the  arts  and  that  esteem  for 
their  professors  which  the  destruction  of  privileges, 
the  division  of  property,  all  the  circumstances  which 
melted  the  court  and  the  monarchy  into  the  nation, 
blended  with  the  great  mass  of  the  nation  also. 

It  is  to  kings  and  to  courts  that  the  French  people 
originally  owe  the  predilection  which  many  of  you,  my 
countrymen,  imagine  to  be  naturally  and  necessarily  the 
feeling  of  the  multitude — it  is  from  the  education  of  the 
garden,  of  the  gallery,  and  the  theatre  that  those  tastes 
have  in  a  great  measure  been  derived,  which  many  of  you 
would  attribute  wholly  to  the  school.  It  is,  moreover, 
as  the  camp  succeeded  to  the  court — from  war  and 
F2 


124  LITERARV    INFLUENCE. 

from  conquest, — from  the  variety  and  the  history 
which  connect  the  chefs-d'oeuvres  of  Raphael  and  Mi- 
chael Angelo  with  the  victories  of  Italy  and  Napoleon,* 
that  a  sentiment  is  felt  for  the  picture-gallery  and  the 
statue-room,  which  many  of  you  attribute  to  the  im- 
provements and  the  refinements  of  peace.  And  it  is 
again  owing  to  the  quick  and  vivid  perceptions,  to  the 
enthusiastic  and  admiring  character  of  the  French 
themselves,  that  so  strong  an  impulse  has  been  given 
to  the  natural  effect  of  the  causes  I  have  described. 
Some  of  you  still  think  in  your  hearts,  perhaps,  that  it 
is  only  to  the  press,  to  the  Chamber,  to  the  long  num- 
ber of  republican  laws  and  free  constitutions  which 
have  succeeded  with  so  much  rapidity  in  France,  that 
a  mere  man  of  letters  became  all  of  a  sudden  so  proud 
a  title.  It  is  just  the  reverse  :  it  was  not  because 
there  was  liberty,  but  because  there  was  despotism  ; 
it  was  not  because  there  was  a  free  press,  but  because 
there  was  no  free  press  ;  it  was  not  because  there  was 
a  popular  assembly,  but  because  there  was  no  popular 
assembly, — that  literary  men,  as  the  only  organs  of  en- 
lightened opinion,  became  towards  the  latter  days  of 
the  old  "  regime"  a  second  estate  in  the  realm,  and 
possessing  extraordinary  power,  obtained  an  hereditary 
respect.f 

Such  nonsense  is  it  to  embrace  all  advantages  in 

*  During  the  campaigns  of  Bonaparte,  in  addition  to  that  know- 
ledge which  the  views  of  other  countries  and  the  necessary  study 
of  other  customs  must  have  produced  with  the  soldiers  abroad— war 
contributed  to  the  education  of  the  peasant  left  at  home,  and  the 
conscript  who  wrote  to  his  family  on  account  of  his  exploits,  stimu- 
lated the  most  ignorant  of  his  village  to  acquire  a  knowledge  neces- 
sary to  give  the  key  to  so  interesting  a  correspondence.  And,  in  the 
same  manner,  from  the  successes  of  military  despotism,  the  daily 

f»ress  acquired  an  interest,  an  influence,  and  a  power  which  at  a 
ater  period  it  used  against  that  despotism  itself. 

1 1  need  hardly  say  that,  in  stating  what  have  been  the  causes  of  a 
feeling  in  France,  which  I  would  wish  to  see  introduced  into  England, 
I  by  no  means  think  the  same  causes  necessary  to  introduce  it  into 
one  country  that  did  originally  introduce  it  into  the  other.  On  the 
contrary,  we  must  look  at  the  feeling  by  itself,  ask  whether  it  is 
good  or  bad,  advantageous  or  disadvantageous  to  a  state — and  if  we  de- 
cide, not  in  favour  of  its  advantage,  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  considera- 
tion,— of  what  grafted  it  on  the  French  character — but  of  what  might 
graft  it  on  ours. 


LITERARY    INFLUENCK.  125 

one  system  and  to  exclude  them  from  another  ;  so  ne- 
cessary is  it  in  looking  at  the  present  to  refer  to  tlie 
past ;  so  sure  are  we  to  be  wrong,  if  we  think  one 
effect  is  always  produced  by  one  cause  ;  or  to  believe 
that  the  same  events  which  confirm  and  extend  a 
power  have,  as  a  matter  of  course,  planted  or  pro- 
duced it. 

The  authority  of  letters  now  extending  and  main- 
taining liberty  in  France,  originated  in  despotism  ;  and 
the  class  carried  by  the  revolution  of  July  into  ofHce^ 
was  encouraged  under  the  ministry  of  Napoleon,  and 
created  by  the  policy  of  Richelieu.  If  you  wish,  as  I 
wish,  my  readers,  to  encourage  the  arts,  to  raise  in 
public  estimation  the  character  of  men  ofleters  in  Eng- 
land, it  is  not  by  resigning  yourselves  to  tlie  belief  that, 
because  you  find  the  one  cultivated  and  the  other  re- 
spected where  the  people  have  power,  the  people  having 
power  will  alone  do  this.  Neither  is  it  by  imagining 
that  ordinary  education,  which  would  be  sufficient  to 
spread  and  to  increase  a  love  for  science  and  the  arts 
where  it  already  exists,  is  sufficient  to  generate  that 
anection  where  it  does  not  exist.  Neither  must  you 
think  that  what  has  been  produced  by  certain  causes 
in  one  country  requires  the  same  causes  to  produce  it 
in  yours. 

If  you  wish  to  introduce  a  love  of  the  arts  and  to 
elevate  literary  men  in  England,  you  must  study  the 
genius,  the  character,  and  the  history  of  the  English 
people.  You  must  introduce  the  passion  you  wish 
to  create,  in  the  manner  in  which  it  can  best  blend  with 
the  dispositions  that  you  find  existing.  If  you  wish 
to  wake  the  attention  of  a  cold  and  apathetic  people  to 
the  arts,  you  must  multiply  statues  and  forms  of  beauty 
in  your  public  walks — you  must  let  your  galleries  and 
your  collections  stand  with  doors  wide  open  to  the  pub- 
lic*    If  you  wish  to  inspire  a  manufacturing  people 


*  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  best  collections  belonging— not  to  the 

state,  but  to  individuals,  and  depending  for  their  exhibition  rather  on 

private  courtesy  than  on  public  advantage — has  kept  that  taste  among 

the  higher  classes,  where  it  is  only  a  personal  accomplishment — from 

11* 


126  LITERARY    IKFLUENCK. 

with  any  just  idea  of  the  vahie  of  sculpture  and  of  paint- 
ing, you  must  not  simply  institute  schools  of  painting 
and  sculpture,  but  schools  that  shall  connect  painting 
and  sculpture  with  manufactures.     If  you  wish  among 
an  aristocratical  people  to  raise  the  situation  of  men  of 
science  and  men  of  letters,  you  must  not  merely  in 
slitute  universities  and  societies  which  shall  keep  men 
of  letters  and  science  apart  from  the  rest  of  their  fel 
low-citizens,  you  must  confer  such  honours  and  dis 
tinctions  upon  literary  and  scientific  labours,  as  are  ob- 
tained in  the  army  or  at  the  bar,  and  not  forbid  the 
highest  genius  in  literature  to  aspire  to  the  same  posi- 
tion and  the  same  rank  in  society  that  even  wealth  and 
court  favour  are  sufficient  to  give. 

I  do  not,  for  my  own  part,  see  only  evil  in  that  spe- 
cies of  aristocracy  which  has  long  existed  in  England. 
1  may  elsewhere  have  occasion  to  observe  why  I  think 
the  modified  continuance  of  such  an  aristocracy  still 
desirable.  But  if  it  continue,  it  will  be  by  the  enlarge- 
ment and  extension  of  that  principle  on  which  it  has 
hitherto  maintained  itself — it  will  be  by  taking  into  its 
body  all  those  who  are  formidable  as  its  rivals.  It 
will  be  by  not  considering  itself  apart  from  any  set  of 
men  who  confer  public  benefit  or  enjoy  popular  favour. 
Had  I  to  choose  between  the  two,  I  should  certainly 
prefer  the  aristocracy  of  birth  and  of  land  to  that  which 
has  bought  its  titles  yesterday  at  the  stock  exchange. 
But  the  time  is  approaching  when  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  will  be  able  to  stand  alone.     The  time  is  ap- 

the  lower,  where  it  is  a  source  of  national  prosperity ;  instead  of  en- 
deavouring to  counteract  this  evil,  the  state  seems  to  favour  and  to 
encourage  it,  and  at  the  door  of  galleries  called  "public,"  you  are 
impertinently,  for  it  is  "impertinently,"  requested  to  pay  for  your 
admission.  Nor  is  this  all.  Whenever  the  question  is  agitated  of  how- 
much  you  ought  to  do  to  encourage  national  taste,  it  is  always  dis- 
cussed on  the  principle  of  how  little  you  need  do.  Instead  of  seeing 
that,  if  we  wish  to  rival  France,  we  must  do  more  than  France,  it  is 
thought  a  most  triumphant  argument  if  we  can  show,  that  in  any  one 
instance,  as  in  the  opening  of  the  museum,  for  example,  we  do  as 
much  as  France.  Nor  are  we  at  all  sensible,  that  a  taste  important  to 
the  French,  who  are  not  a  commercial  and  manufacturing  people,  would  be 
of  f^^  '"^ore  importance  to  the  English,  who  are  devoted  to  commerce  and 
manvfactures. 


LITERARY     INFLUENCE.  J  27 

preaching  when  an  hereditary  aristocracy  must  receive 
support  from  an  aristocracy  that  is  not  hereditary — 
and  the  alliance  which  it  formerly  made  with  talent  in 
the  House  of  Commons — be  renewed  under  nobler  and 
purer  auspices  in  another  assembly.  But  it  is  not  here 
that  I  would  pursue  this  subject. 

And  now  let  me  give  a  striking  instance  of  the 
value  and  of  the  pervading  nature  of  that  literary  influ- 
ence which  extends  over  every  thing  in  France,  and 
which  is  so  essentially  wanting  to  decorate  the  indus- 
try, as  well  as  to  brighten  and  to  cultivate  the  character 
in  England. 

Dr.  Bowring,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Silk  Com- 
mittee in  1832,  says,  "I  was  exceedingly  surprised 
(he  is  speaking  of  Lyons)  at  finding  among  weavers 
themselves,  and  among  their  children,  and  among  every- 
body connected  with  the  production  of  patterns,  a  per- 
petual attention  to  every  thing  which  was  in  any  way 
connected  with  hcauty  and  colour.  I  have  again  and 
again  seen  weavers  walking  about  gathering  jiowers^ 
and  arranging  them  in  their  most  graceful  and  attract- 
ive shape ;"  and  so,  he  says  farther  on,  "  I  beg  to  state 
that  the  universal  conviction  in  France  is,  that  the 
French  are  wholly  dependant  on  the  superior  beauty 
of  their  productions  for  their  foreign  sale,  and  the  uni- 
versal desire  among  the  manufacturers  is  to  do  some- 
thing which,  in  the  '•regions  of  taste  ^^  shall  be  better 
than  that  which  is  done  by  their  neighbours."  I  do 
not  know  any  thing  more  worthy  of  remark  than  the 
whole  of  this  part  of  Dr.  Bowring's  evidence.  The 
Mayor  of  Lyons,  aware  of  the  pressure  which  compe- 
tition is  likely  to  bring  upon  the  trade  of  his  town,  and 
taking  the  best  means  to  avert  the  calamity,  does — 
what  ?  Why,  he  supports  and  encourages  a  school, 
where  the  weaver  may  be  taught  painting,  and  sculp- 
ture, and  botany ;  and  begs  Dr.  Bowring  to  send  him — 
copies  of  the  Elgin  marbles  from  England ! 

But  it  is  not  only  a  superiority  of  colour  or  of  pat- 
tern which  this  study  of  the  arts  produces ;  the  taste 
which  it  creates  is  not  only  present  in  the  "  atelier," 


128  LITERARY     INFLUENCE. 

and  presiding-  over  the  loom — it  is  at  the  very  seat  and 
capital  of  fashionable  empire,  viz. — in  the  milliner's 
shop.  If  the  French  milliner  knows  what  colours  best 
assimilate,  where  to  put  in  a  little  bit  of  pink,  and  where 
a  little  stripe  of  brown — if  she  has  a  peculiar  taste  in 
arranging  the  set  of  a  gown  and  the  fall  of  a  sleeve,* 
it  is  the  work  of  laws,  customs,  years,  and  not  the 
work  of  chance  ;  it  is  the  effect  of  an  influence  cher- 
ished and  created  at  the  apex  of  society,  and  which 
has  worked  its  Avay  into  the  foundations  of  society — 
it  is  the  effect  of  the  causes  which  made  Voltaire  the 
idol  of  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  which  gave  David  the 
great  cordon  of  honour,  which  made  Bonapartef  boast  of 

*  So  far  has  this  taste  for  the  arts  penetrated  into  the  Tiation,  and 
mingled  witia  all  that  is  most  national,  that  you  find  it  enter  into  the 
occupations  of  the  army,  and  many  of  the  regiments  amuse  and 
occupy  themselves  by  ornamontingwith  statues,  and  fountains,  and 
walks,  the  town  in  which  they  may  happen  to  be  stationed.  But  if  i 
wished  to  give  at  once  the  most  simple  and  striking  instance  of  the 
influence  of  literature  in  France,  I  do  not  think  I  could  give  a  better 
one  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  first  nevi^spaper  on  Galignani's  table. 
Observe,  whatever  the  paper  is,  whatever  the  subjects  of  the  day  it 
has  to  speak  of — observe,  that  literature,  either  in  the  review  of  a  play, 
or  in  the  review  of  a  novel,  or  in  an  account  of  the  lectures  of  a  pro- 
fessor, is  sure  to  occupy  one  third  of  its  sides.  Here  it  is  not  the  lite- 
raryjournal  separate  from  the  political  journal ;  the  same  person  who 
takes  an  interest  in  politics  is  supposed  to  take  an  interest  in  hterature ; 
and  that  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  particular  attention,  is  the  pubhc,  and 
popular,  and  general  mode  which  science,  in  the  weekly  account  of  its 
proceedings — proceedings  which  appear  with  all  the  other  news  of  the 
day,  has  of  corresponding  with  the  public,  and  interesting  and  per- 
petually informing  the  public  by  its  inquiries.  I  allude  to  the  reports 
of  the  Institut,  which  appear  in  all  the  political  newspapers,  and 
carry  to  every  extremity  of  France  the  daily  and  weekly  discoveries 
of  the  metropolis.  The  savant  appears  before  his  brethren,  he  tells 
them  what  he  has  been  doing  during  the  week,  and  this  information 
is  in  every  body's  hands  almost  as  soon  as  it  has  passed  the  philo- 
sopher's lips.  The  circumstance  of  such  reports  finding  their  way 
into  papers  only  professing  to  feed  the  public  appetite,  is  no  less  extra- 
ordinary as  a  proof  of  the  general  taste  for  science,  than  valuable  as 
a  channel  for  its  general  diffusion. 

t  I  never  heard  louder  applause  than  I  did  at  Franconi's  (our 
Astley's,  and  filled  with  a  Parisian  populace),  when  the  actor,  who 
was  Napol6on  for  the  night,  had  gave  to  this  painter  the  same  deco- 
ration which  he  had  just  been  giving  to  Massena  the  general.  And 
such  was  the  feeling  which  lormerly  made  the  French  bow  to  a  despot 
whom  they  had  seen  boast  of  being  a  man  of  science !  They  had 
understood  from  that  boast  that  their  emperor  placed  the  power  of 
the  mind  above  every  other  power,  and  the  respect  which  they  paid  his 
tyranny  spremg  from  the  thought  that  it  was  governed  by  intelligence. 


LITERARY    INFLUENCE.  129 

being  a  member  of  the  Institut  of  France,  and  which 
have  brought,  as  I  first  said,  Messrs.  Lamartine,  and 
Thiers,  and  Arago,  into  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

If  England  could  join  to  her  talent  for  detail,  to  her 
power  of  perfecting  and  polishing  the  discoveries  of 
others,  to  her  sound  and  sterling  sense — if  she  could 
join  to  the  positive  qualities  which  the  practice  of 
daily  activity  gives — the  comprehension,  the  inven- 
tion, the  elevation,  which  the  study  of  vague  and  beau- 
tiful things  inspires — more  industrious  than  the  states 
of  Rome — more  steady  and  resolute  of  spirit  than  the 
states  of  Greece — she  would  transmit  to  posterity  a 
fame  which  antiquity  has  not  left  behind  it.  To  enti- 
tle her  to  this  fame,  and  to  the  riches,  and  to  the  ho- 
nour, and  to  the  moral  greatness  which  would  accom- 
pany this  fame — to  make  her  mistress  of  the  arts,  and 
to  keep  her  mistress  of  the  seas — to  spread  with  her 
wealth  and  her  manufactures  the  love  of  the  beautiful 
and  the  study  of  the  sublime  ;  to  make  commerce  a 
carrier  to  science,  and  to  impress  on  a  riband,  which 
shall  traverse  the  world,  the  triumphs  of  modern  indus- 
try, and  the  aspirations  of  olden  times ; — here  is  an 
object  well  worthy  of  a  statesman — an  object  difficult, 
but  not  impossible  io  attain — an  object  the  most  noble, 
the  most  glorious,  the  most  useful,  that  a  British  states- 
man 6ver  yet  pursued. 

But,  reader,  when  you  are  shown  the  child  of  the  ope- 
rative walking  about  the  fields  and  gathering  and  arrang- 
ing flowers  to  improve  the  manufactures  of  Lyons- -you 
must  at  the  same  time  see  (for  one  circumstance  is  con- 
nected with  the  other)  what  every  successive  govern- 
ment has  done  for  men  of  letters  and  science  in  France. 

The  following  are  among  the  names  of  persons  who, 
during  the  empire,  the  restoration,  and  since  the  revo- 
lution, have  received  the  rewards  and  honours  of  the 
state  on  account  of  their  literary  and  scientific  attain- 
ments.* 

*  In  this  list  the  members  of  the  four  classes  of  the  Institut  are 
not  included,  though  all,  as  meml)ers  of  this  institution,  receive  in- 
comes, the  smallest  of  which  is  1,500  francs,  the  largest  12,000  francs 
per  annum. 

F3 


130 


LITERARY    INFLUENCE. 


UNDKR 

Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre, 

Legouve, 

Andrieux, 

Luce  de  Lancival, 

Piis  (chansonnier), 

Baour  Loriniran, 

Picard, 

Chenier, 

Lebrun  (le  Pindarique), 

Lebnm  (Pierre), 

Millevoyc, 

Victorin  Fabre, 

Jouy, 

Delrieu, 

Parseval  Grandmaison, 

Treneuil, 

Parny, 

Tissot, 

Campenon, 

Roger, 

Creuze  de  Lessert, 


THE    EMPIRE. 


Lacretelle, 

Chenedoll6, 

Castel,  ' 

Soumet, 

Etienne, 

Mercier(du  tableau  de  Paris), 

Laya, 

Bonald, 

Feletz, 

Palissot, 

Amauld, 

Esmenard, 

Delille, 

Cuvier, 

Fourrier, 

Villemain, 

Guillard, 

Rajmouard, 

Le  Chevalier, 

Dacier. 


To'this  list  add  the  names  of  those  persons  whose 
literary  talent  raised  them  to  the  high  ranks  of  the 
empire  ! — Among  the  senators  were  : — 


Fontanes, 

Laplace, 

Lac6pede, 
Lebrun, 

Lagrange, 
Daru, 

Volney, 

Segur, 

Bougainville, 

Bassano, 

Tracy, 

Regnaud  de  St.  Jean  d'An- 

Pastoret, 

gely. 

Gamier, 

UNDER   ' 

rHE    RESTORATION. 

Chateaubriand, 

Mazeres, 

Ancelot, 

Barante, 

Delaville, 

Augustin  Thierry, 

V.  Hugo, 

Guiraud, 

Nodier, 

Aime  Martin, 

Briffaut, 

Auger, 

Chazet  (30,000  francs) 

c'est 

J.  Bonald. 

un  chansonnier, 

SINCE   THE 

REVOLUTION   OF   JULY. 

P.  Lebrun,                  • 
Amauld,  p^re, 
Tissot, 

I  reparation ;  they  had  been  deprived  ol 
their  pensions. 

LITERARY    INFLUENCE.  131 

Benjamin  Constant,  Mery, 

Thiers,  Jouy, 

Mignet,  D'Lpagny, 

Alex.  Duval,  Lucien  Arnauld, 

Say,  Augustin  Thierry  (augmenta- 

Casinair  Delavigne,  tioii), 

Casimir  Bonjour,  Rouget  de  Lisle  (auteur  de 

Barthelemy,  la  Marseillaise). 

Made  Peers. 
Cousin,  Royer  Collard, 

Villemain,  Berlin  de  Vaux,  &c 

For  the  number  of  libraries,  and  for  the  number  of 
books  which  these  libraries  contain,  relative  to  the 
population  in  the  different  departments  of  France  (the 
department  of  the  Seine  excepted),  I  refer  the  reader 
to  the  Appendix ;  but  as  the  provinces  are  far  behind 
the  capital,  it  is  worth  while  remarking,  that  in  Paris 
the  public  has  three  volumes  to  every  two  individuals. 
i.  e.  there  are  1,378,000  volumes. 

774,000  individuals. 

For  the  number  of  works  published  in  literature,  the 
arts,  and  on  science,  I  also  refer  my  reader  to  the  Ap- 
pendix, where  he  will  find  a  statement  of  the  numbers 
of  societies  founded  by  the  state,  or  by  individuals,  for 
the  advancement  of  different  branches  of  knowledge 
among  different  classes  of  society. 

Among  these  I  would  here,  however,  mention — 

"  Ecole  royale  gratuite  de  Mathematique  et  de 
Dessin  en  faveur  des  Arts  Micaniques,^^  where  five 
hundred  children,  the  children  of  artisans,  receive  in- 
struction gratis.  Observe,  that  this  school  was  founded 
in  1760,  and  authorized  by  the  letters  patent  of  Louis 
XV. 

"  Ecole  royale  et  gratuite  de  Dessin  de  jeunes  per- 
sonnes,"  where  drawing  in  its  various  branches  is 
taught  for  the  same  purpose. 

The  School  of  St.  Peter,  at  Lyons — and  for  an  ac- 
count of  which  I  refer  to  Dr.  Bowring's  evidence  on  the 
Silk  Committee,  which  I  have  alluded  to,  and  which  I 
may  give  in  the  Appendix — andLesEcoles  royalesdes 
Arts  et  Metiers ;  the  one  at  Chalons  (Morne),the  other  at 
Angers,  Maine-et-Loire.  Here,  the  boys  going  at  fourteen 


132  LITERARY    INFLUENCF. 

pr  seventeen  years  of  age,  stay  three  years,  and  study 
every  thing  which  can  conduce  to  their  understanding 
or  practising  their  profession  with  skill  and  intelligence. 
They  are  not  only  taught  the  principles  of  science  that 
would  be  applicable  to  their  craft,  they  are  made  to 
apply  those  principles.  They  work  in  the  carpenter's 
shop,  at  the  forge,  they  handle  the  hammer  and  the 
file,  and  every  pains  is  taken  to  make  them  at  once 
clever  men  and  good  mechanics.  In  order  to  confine 
these  institutions  strictly  to  persons  connected  with  in- 
dustry, none  by  a  late  rule  are  allowed  to  enter  them 
who  have  not  served  for  one  year  as  apprentice  to  a 
trade. 

Some  of  the  children  are  apprentices  to  fathers,  who 
can  afford  to  pay  five  hundred  francs  per  year,  the 
ordinary  sum  which  those  not  admitted  gratuitously 
pay ;  but  there  are  one  hundred  and  fifty  who  pay  only 
half  of  this  ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  who  only  pay  three 
quarters  ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  who  pay  nothing :  be- 
sides, as  prizes  are  distributed  to  those  boys  who  dis- 
tinguish themselves,  many,  who  enter  at  two  hundred 
and  fifty  francs  per  annum,  gain  their  pension  before 
the  time  is  expired.*  It  only  remains  for  me  to  ob- 
serve, that  so  entirely  does  the  government  abstain 
from  any  improper  influence  in  the  patronage  of  these 
schools,  those  who  are  sent  at  a  less  rate  than  the  five 
hundred  francs,  i.  e.  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  francs,  or 
for  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  francs,  or  for  nothing, 
are  named  on  an  examination  bj/  a  jury  of  the  different 
departments. 

It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  advantages  of  these 
establishments,  since  such  advantages  are  not  to  be 
estimated  by  the  number  of  persons  who  receive  in- 
struction, but  by  the  extension  which,  through  them, 
that  instruction  receives,  and  by  the  emulation  which, 
through  them,  that  instruction  excites.  It  is  by  the 
union  of  practice  and  theory,  of  science  and  its  appli- 
cation ;  it  is  by  the  ecole  polytechnique  in  one  class, 

*  On  quitting  these  schools,  the  pupils  are  placed  out  advantage- 
ously, according  to  their  profession  and  their  proficiency  in  it. 


LITERARY    INFLUENCE  133 

and  these  institutions  in  another ;  it  is  by  these  two 
fountains  which,  starting  from  two  different  sources, 
meet  and  blend  in  the  great  stream  of  social  civiliza- 
tion, that  the  French  are  now  extending  the  advantages 
of  literary  influence,  and  at  the  same  time  correcting  the 

defects  it  was  likely  to  engender But  if  1  have 

an  opportunity  of  speaking  more  fully  of  industry  and 
education,  then  will  be  the  time  to  pursue  the  discussion 
of  these  matters — it  pleases  me  now  to  turn  back  from 
the  artisan  and  the  workshop  to  the  fine  lady  and  the 
salon,  and  to  show  the  same  spirit  presiding  over  the 
two  extremes. 

As  the  literaiy  man  is  honoured  in  the  state,  so  is 

he    honoured   in   society.     At   Madame    D 's,  at 

Madame  de  M 's,  at  Madame  de    R 's,  you 

meet  all  the  literary  men  who  belong  to  all  the  differ- 
ent political  opinions.  Indeed,  wherever  you  go,  be 
sure  that  the  person  particularly  noticed,  if  not  a 
remarkable  officer — is  a  remarkable  writer. 

This  is  the  case  in  France,  where  we  are  met  on 
the  one  hand  by  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Bowring — on  the 
other  by  the  list  of  pensions,  donations,  and  appoint- 
ments that  I  have  submitted  to  the  reader.  This  is 
the  case  in  France,  where  the  advancement  of  men  of 
letters  seems  to  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  advance 
and  progress  of  manufactures.  But  in  England — 
where  men  of  letters  are  least  esteemed,  and  yet  where 
industry  ought  to  be  most  encouraged — what  is  the 
case  in  England  and  in  the  society  of  England  ? 

A  literary  Frenchman  whom  I  met  not  long  ago  in 
Paris,  said  to  me,  that  a  good-natured  young  English 
nobleman,  whom  I  will  not  name,  had  told  him  that 
dancers,  and  singers,  &c.  were  perfectly  well  received 
in  English  society,  but  not  men  of  letters. 

*'  Est-il  possible  qu'on  soit  si  barbare  chez  vous  V 
said  the  French  gentleman  to  me.  I  think  the  young 
nobleman,  to  whom  the  persons  pursuing  literature  in 
England  must  be  very  much  obliged,  rather  exaggerated. 
I  do  not  think  the  door  is  actually  bolted  upon  you 
directly  you  are  found  out  to  write — but  I  think  it  is 
12 


134  LITERARY     INFLUENCE. 

Opened  to  you  with  a  much  more  cautious  air — and  I 
am  quite  sure  it  would  not  be  opened  to  you  wholly  and 
solely  because  you  had  written. 

To  be  known  as  a  writer  is  certainly  to  your  preju- 
dice. First — people  presume  you  are  not  what  they 
call  a  "  gentleman,"  and  the  grandfather  who,  if  you 
were  a  banker,  or  a  butcher,  or  of  any  other  calling  or 
profession,  would  be  left  quiet  in  his  tomb,  is  evoked 
against  you.  If  this  exhumation  take  place  in  vain,  if 
a  gentle  genealogy  be  established,  and  the  fact  of  your 
being,  in  vulgar  parlance,  "  a  gentleman,"  placed  beyond 
denial,  then  your  good  blood  is  made  the  reservoir  of 
all  evil  passions  ;  you  are  obligingly  painted  as  the 
incarnation  of  envy,  of  malice,  and  all  uncharitable- 
ness ;  your  picture  is  drawn  in  some  friendly  maga- 
zine, twisted  into  contortions  that  would  terrify  all  the 
witches  of  the  Hebrides.  You  have  got  a  horrid  nose, 
red  hair,  and  a  heart  blacker  than  all  Valpy's,  and 
Whittingham's,  and  Bentley's  printing  devils  could  paint 
it.  At  last  your  banker's  book  is  looked  into,  and  it 
is  found  out  or  presumed  that  you  are  poor,  or  if  you 
are  not  poor,  it  is  quite  clear  that  you  are  penurious. 
You  refused  ten  guineas  to  a  dozen  poorer  authors  than 
yourself,  and  did  not  give  100/.,  as  you  ought  to  have 
done,  to  the  Literary  Fund. 

How  many  gentlemen  have  refused,  and  how  many 
gentlemen  would  refuse  their  purse  to  a  poetical  impos- 
tor, without  being  pelted  with  every  species  of  abuse, 
as  Horace  Walpole  was  on  that  story  of  Chatterton, 
and  simply  because  Horace  Walpole,  though  a  gentle- 
man, and  a  moderately  rich  man,  was  also,  unfortu- 
nately for  him,  an  author !  How  many  people  does 
one  meet  quite  as  be-mummified  and  twice  as  ill- 
natured  and  disagreeable  as  poor  Mr.  R s,  and  who 

yet  are  neither  called  dead  men  nor  such  very  odious 
and  disagreeable  men,  as  everybody,  chuckling,  calls 

poor  Mr.    R ,    because — he   is    an    author !      A 

thousand  husbands  are  as  bad  as  Lord  Byron  ever  was, 
and  yet  they  are  not  cut,  nor  called  diabolical,  and 
Satanic,  as  poor  Lord  Byron  was  cut  and  called  all 


LITERARY    INFLUENCE.  135 

this,  because  Lord  Byron  was  an  author.  It  is  a  most 
singular  thing,  but  hardly  is  a  man  pointed  out  in 
England  as  having  wielded  a  pen  with  tolerable  suc- 
cess, than  everybody  spits  upon  him  every  kind  of 
venom. 

Some — many  of  the  reasons  for  this  difference 
between  France  and  England — I  have  stated.  They 
belong  to  history  ;  they  belong  to  the  past ;  they  belong 
to  the  fact,  that  a  monarchy  governed  in  France  which 
sought  to  humble  the  aristocracy,  while  an  aristocracy 
governed  in  England  which  sought  to  abase  the  Com- 
mons. But  there  are  three  causes  which  more  espe- 
cially operate  at  the  present  time  to  maintain  the  dis- 
tinction originated  by  former  laws,  and  customs,  and 
intentions. 

First — The  influence  of'Womo:i  in  France,  and  the 
higher  cast  of  their  thoughts  and  their  pursuits.  Sec- 
ondly— The  "  esprit  de  corps,"  which  in  France,  as 
connected  with  the  natural  vanity  of  the  French,  I  have 
already  noticed.  And  lastly,  the  state  of  property  in 
France — the  state  of  property,  which  enters  more  than 
people  imagine,  into  every  relation  of  life,  into  every 
production  of  human  intelligence,  into  every  law  passed 
for  social  happiness,  and  which,  when  we  consider  the 
present  state  of  France,  it  is  most  especially  our  duty 
to  keep  before  us. 

The  greater  frivolity  of  English  women,  and  conse- 
quently the  greater  frivolity  of  English  society,  neces- 
sarily create  a  kind  of  fear  and  horror  among  that 
body  for  a  being  who,  having  been  guilty  of  writing, 
is  supposed,  oftentimes  very  fallaciously,  to  have  been 
guilty  of  thinking,  and  who  is  therefore  considered 
what  a  sober  man  would  be  by  a  set  of  drunken  asso- 
ciates, viz. — a  bore  and  a  critic.  The  esteem  which 
every  man  sets  upon  himself  in  England — so  different 
from  the  vanity  which  makes  every  man  in  France 
connect  himself,  wherever  he  can,  with  all  that  is 
greater  than  himself,  induces  persons  to  view  with 
jealousy  instead  of  with  pride,  any  man  who,  employ- 


136  LITERARY    INFLUENCE. 

ing  no  more  pens  ink,  and  paper  than  he  does,  con- 
trives to  make  a  greater  reputation. 

His  first  saying  is,  "  that  man  cannot  be  cleverer  than 
I  am."  Then  he  says,  "  Why  should  he  be  more  suc- 
cessful ?"  Then  he  hates  and  abhors  him  because  he 
is  more  successful ;  and  then  he  very  naturally  abuses 
him  because  he  abhors  him.  No  men  in  France  hang 
more  together  than  literary  men  ;  no  men  defend  their 
order  with  more  tenacity.  M.  Thiers,  as  "  ministre," 
does  not  forget  that  he  is  "  homme  de  lettres."  No 
men  in  England  pull  one  another  so  much  to  pieces. 
When  Mr.  Brougham,  when  Mr.  Macaulay  first  appeared 
as  politicians,  all  the  papers,  and  all  the  newspaper 
writers,  poured  forth  their  ridicule  and  their  abuse  on 
these  literary  young  men  who  presumed  to  make 
speeches.  It  was  utterly  impossible,  shouted  forth  all 
these  gentlemen, — employed  themselves  every  day, 
by-the-by,  in  writing  and  deciding  upon  the  politics  of 
Europe, — for  any  man  who  had  also  written,  to  have 
any  notion  of  these  politics.  It  was  indignation,  it  was 
scorn,  it  was  vituperation,  that  these  two  gentlemen 
excited,  just  among  those  very  persons  who  in  France 
would  have  been  most  proud  and  most  happy  to  say  : 
"  We  are  delighted  at  Mr.  Brougham's  or  Mr.  Macau- 
lay's  eloquence  ;  it  shows  the  advantages  of  a  culti- 
vated taste  ;  the  position  which  literary  men  might  and 
ought  to  aspire  to" — secretly  whispering  to  themselves, 
"  and  we  too  are  literary  men." 

As  for  property  and  its  division  in  France,  that  subject 
is  one  too  vast  for  me  here  to  do  more  than  glance  at. 
But  it  is  easily  seen  that  where  fortunes  are  not  of 
themselves  sufficient  to  make  great  and  important  dis- 
tinctions ;  where  every  person  is  more  or  less  in  the 
situation  of  the  basket-maker  and  the  nobleman  among 
the  savages,  and  chiefly  dependant  for  what  he  receives 
on  what  he  is  able  to  do  :  it  is  easy  to  see.  that  where 
the  pen  easily  procures  an  income,  which  not  three 
thousand  persons  possess  from  land,  the  profession  of 
"Writing  must  hold  a  different  rank  from  that  which  it 


LITKUAKY    INFLUENCE.  137 

occupies  in  a  country  where  fortunes  are  sufficiently 
great  to  overbalance  every  other  distinction. 

There  are  many  things  to  say  in  disparagement  and 
in  favour  of  this,  which,  as  I  said  before,  I  should  wish 
to  say  more  amply  and  satisfactorily,  if  I  have  the 
opportunity,  elsewhere — which  I  should  wish  to  say — ■ 
after  having  more  fully  explained  the  various  effects 
for  good  and  evil  which  the  great  division  of  property 
in  France  has  produced  ;  effects  which  I  shall  presently 
attempt  to  trace  in  some  matters  which  many  would 
suppose  they  could  hardly  reach. 

But  I  cannot  conclude  this  chapter  without  observ- 
ing, that  even  in  France  people  do  not  seem  sufficiently 
aware  of  the  end  to  which  the  influence  of  intelligence 
and  the  insignificance  of  fortune  must  necessarily  lead 
them.  They  do  not  seem  sufficiently  aware  of  the 
necessity  of  recognising,  and  more  fully  establishing 
that  aristocracy — for  aristocracy  in  every  country  there 
must  be — that  aristocracy  which  time  and  taste  have 
already  recognised  ;  an  aristocracy  which  would  be 
powerful  because  it  is  national ;  which  would  be  safe 
because  it  is  peaceably  created ;  and  which  when 
peaceably  created  and  historically  established  in  a 
nation,  is  the  most  rational,  because  the  best  calculated 
to  combine  change  with  conservation,  and  moderation 
with  improvement. 

Yet  may  we  see  a  new  Chamber  of  Peers  taken  from 
the  category  of  the  Academy  and  the  Institut  ;*  yet 
may  we  see  the  concentration  and  the  representation 

*  The  Institut,  even  at  present,  opens  to  the  French  a  double  am- 
bition, and  a  double  career.  It  is  there  that  the  national  character  is 
represented,  and  that  the  national  distinctions  blend  and  meet. 
M.  Thiers  seeks  the  title  of  academician  with  an  ardour  at  least  equal 
to  that  wliich  has  carried  him  so  far  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 
The  Due  de  Raguse  was  as  proud  of  the  title  of  "  Membre  de  I'lnsti- 
tut,"  as  that  of  "  Marechal  de  France."  In  that  society  the  statesman 
is  brought  into  honourable  connection  with  the  Doet ;  the  philosopher 
with  the  soldier.  In  that  society  the  passionate  man,  the  hterary 
man,  the  active  man,  the  studious  jnan,  are  blended  together ;  a  prac- 
tical energy  is  given  to  speculation,  a  nobility  to  ambition.  The 
warrior,  the  orator,  ennoble  their  conceptions  by  science ;  the  his- 
torian, the  professor,  correct  their  theones  bjr  experience — the  one 
learns  to  act  with  dignity,  the  other  to  think  with  truth. 
12* 


138  LITERATURE. 

of  the  intelligence  of  the  kingdom  more  fully  recog- 
nised as  the  proper  mediator  between  the  throne^ 
which  its  political  science  would  teach  it  to  preserve, 
and  the  people,  whom  its  natural  affections  would  pre- 
vent it  from  betraying. 


LITERATURE. 

Literature — Society  in  a  transitory  state — Every  epoch  in  civilization 
bears  its  certain  fruit— Afterwrard,  that  society  wears  out,  or 
must  be  invigorated  by  a  new  soil — A  new  stratum  for  society 
produced  in  France  a  new  era — The  genius  of  this  era  first  visible 
in  the  Army — Now  in  Literature — What  I  intend  to  do  in  speak- 
ing of  French  literature. 

The  three  influences  most  popular  in  society,  and 
most  consulted  with  the  character  and  the  history  of 
France,  are  then — the  influence  of  arms,  the  influence 
of  women,  and  the  influence  of  letters — and  the  gov- 
ernment that  is  wise  will  not  endeavour  to  destroy, 
but  will  endeavour  so  to  mould  and  employ  these  in- 
fluences as  to  invigorate  and  embellish  the  institutions 
— to  improve  and  to  elevate  the  social  existence  of  the 
French.  But  there  is  another  influence,  an  influence 
to  which  I  have  just  been  alluding — an  influence  of 
more  modern  growth,  twining  itself  in  with  the  his- 
tory, incorporating  itself  with  the  character  of  the  na- 
tion— an  influence  which,  while  other  influences  de- 
scend from  the  past,  is  now  creating  a  future — an  in- 
fluence which,  as  I  have  just  been  speaking  of  the  in- 
fluence of  literature,  I  will  trace  through  the  labours 
of  literature  itself. 

"We  are  not,  as  it  seems  to  many,  in  the  epoch  of 
any  peculiar  revolution,  but  in  an  era  of  general  trans- 
formation. All  society  is  on  the  change.  What  pe- 
riod will  see  this  movement  cease,  God  alone  caii 
say." 


LITKRATUUK.  139 

*'  To  what  end  is  society  directing  itself?  Behind 
us,  ruins ;  before  us,  an  impenetrable  obscurity ; 
where  we  are,  a  terrible  inquietude.  Religions  fall, 
other  religions  rise,  or  attempt  to  rise  ;  the  confusion 
of  literary  and  political  opinions  is  what  has  rarely 
been  before." 

These  are  two  passages,  the  one  from  M.  Chateau- 
briand, the  other  from  the  preface  of  a  youthful  poet,* 
who  seemed  at  one  time  likely  to  represent  the  char- 
acter of  his  times.  Society  indeed  is,  in  France,  as 
it  is  all  over  the  world,  in  a  state  of  transition ;  so  is 
society  always,  we  may  say,  for  civilization,  retrogad- 
ing  or  advancing,  never  standing  still.  So  is  society 
always  ;  yet  there  are  periods  to  which  the  epithet  of 
"  transitory"  may  be  peculiarly  applied  ;  for  there  are 
periods  at  whieh  it  is  more  evident  than  at  others,  that 
a  movement  is  taking  place.  No  fixed  taste  predomi- 
nates ;  there  is  an  incongruity  in  all  things,  a  want  of 
unity,  a  want  of  harmony ;  the  sons  have  passed  beyond 
the  recognised  rule  of  their  sires,  but  they  have  not  yet 
found  any  for  themselves.  They  are  on  the  search,  they 
try,  they  abandon,  they  adopt,  they  forsake.  Each  has 
his  own  scheme,  his  own  thought  :  looking  at  them 
separately,  these  schemes,  these  thoughts  are  diverse  : 
viewing  them  together,  they  appear  less  unlike,  for 
there  is  always  a  general  tendency  throughout  them 
all,  a  general  tendency  to  The  New  Age,  in  which  there 
will  be  unity,  in  which  there  will  be  harmony,  in  which 
there  will  be  an  insensibility  to  the  movement  that 
must  always  be  going  on.  For  society  has  its  resting- 
places,  at  which  it  collects  and  breathes  itself;  at 
which  it  prepares  for  new  efforts,  engendering  new 
ideas — ideas  which,  until  they  triumph  over  those 
more  antiquated,  are  unheeded ;  and  then  comes  an- 
other epoch  of  doubt,  uncertainty,  and  search.  So  is 
it  for  ever f 

That  we  are  in  one  of  those  periods  of  search  ard 
discovery,  of  mingling  and  jarring  doubts,  of  disputes, 

*  M,  Barbier. 

t  The  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  was  a  stationary  epoch ;  remark  the 


140  LITERATURE. 

pretensions,  and  contradictions — that  we  are  in  one  of 
those  periods  which  the  world  calls  "  transitory,"  and 
which  ought  rather  to  be  called  "  confused,"  there  is 
no  denying ;  but  the  vague  truism  which  M.  de  Cha- 
teaubriand so  pompously  puts  forth  may  hardly  pass 
for  a  description  of  the  peculiar  genius  which  sepa- 
rates modern  France  from  ancient  France. 

Every  epoch  of  civilization  bears  its  certain  fruit ; 
-  but  to  get  a  further  produce  you  must  stir  and  upturn 
the  ground  anew,  and  invigorate  the  earth  that  is  grown 
fatigued  and  old  by  mingling  it  with  a  fresh  and  uncul- 
tivated soil.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  chance,  it  is  a 
matter  of  necessity ;  it  is  the  law  of  nature,  the  law 
of  the  world,  which,  incessantly  perishing,  is  inces- 
santly providing  means  for  its  regeneration  and  sup- 
port. 

The  form  of  society  which,  since  the  period  of 
Richelieu,  had  been  gradually  developed,  was  arrived, 
at  the  period  of  the  revolution,  at  its  utmost  state  of 
refinement,  and  exhausted  in  the  school  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  all  its  powers.  The  wit,  the  grace,  the 
incredulity,  the  scientific  vice,  the  cold  and  bloodless 
philosophy  of  a  blazS^d,  debauched,  and  clever  court 
could  produce  nothing  more  than  "la  pucelle," — 
"I'esprit," — "les  liaisons  dangereuses."  What  could 
come  after  the  philosophers,  and  the  poets,  and  the 
novelists  of  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVL — what  could 
come  after  the  profligate  productions  of  an  age,  the 
life  and  spirit  of  which  were  completely  enervated 
and  worn  out,  but  a  long  imbecility  or  a  total  change  ? 
A  total  change  took  place,  a  new  era  came,  for  a  new 

similarity  between  the  government  and  the  manners  and  the  literature 
which  existed  then ;  remark  the  similarity,  the  harmony,  if  I  may  so 
express  myself,  between  a  royal  ordonnance,  a  poem  of  Racine,  a 
court  dress,  and  a  cabriole  chair.  Every  thing  was  grand,  stately, 
ceremonious,  decorous ;  rigid  in  its  rules  of  art  and  etiquette ;  the 
same  genius  presided  over  the  drama  that  regulated  the  cotillon.  It 
was  the  age  of  the  court,  of  the  unities,  of  the  minuet.  The  reaction 
from  the  solemn  regularity  of  one  period  was  the  irreligious  disorder 
of  the  other :  then  men  had  thought  too  much  ;  they  wished  to  think 
no  longer,  and  for  a  time  the  empire  of  action  and  of  the  sword 
replaced  tlie  Uieoretic  realities  of  t^e  revolutionary  tribune. 


LITERATURE.  141 

Stratum  for  society  was  laid, — a  new  era  came,  in 
which  France  was  formed  of  new  materials,  endowed 
with  new  thoughts,  and  clothed  with  new  expressions. 
The  genius  of  this  dawning  time  did  not  first  make 
itself  visible  in  literature  ;  for  it  is  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that,  because  literature  sometimes  represents  the 
mind  of  an  epoch,  it  does  so  always.  It  does  so  only 
when  that  mind  is  not  otherwise  and  more  forcibly  ex- 
pressed. This  is  why  the  character  of  the  empire 
was  traced — not  with  the  pen,  but  with  the  sword  ; 
while  the  placid  sweetness  of  Delille  and  the  com- 
monplace prettiness  of  M.  Jouy  were  striking  as  a 
contrast  to  the  marvellous  magnificence  of  their  age. 
But  from  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  philosophy  and  letters 
have  been  gradually  assuming  an  ardent  spirit  and  a 
vivid  colouring,  analogous  with  the  glory  and  the  fever 
of  that  man's  reign.  It  would  be  far,  I  fear,  beyond 
the  compass  of  this  work  to  enter  fully  into  the  merits 
of  the  different  existing  writers,  or  even  to  take  an  ex- 
tended critical  survey  of  the  different  species  of  wri- 
ting now  most  popular  in  France.  This  I  should  have 
wished  if  I  had  been  able  to  devote  a  volume  to  the 
purpose.  But  all  that  I  now  hope  is,  to  show  that  a 
great  change  has  taken  place  in  French  literature — 
connected  with  the  nature  and  the  causes  of  which 
change  we  shall  easily  trace  an  influence — the  influ- 
ence of  which  I  have  spoken — and  which,  in  affecting 
the  literature,  has  not  less  affected  the  philosophy,  and 
the  religion,  and  the  society,  and  the  government  of  tho 
French  people. 
25 


HISTORY. 

Consider  History  and  the  Drama — France  for  the  first  time  remark- 
able for  historical  composition — The  old  Chronicles,  the  Memoirs 
that  succeeded  them — The  history  of  the  eighteenth  century — The 
history  of  the  nineteenth — The  first  brought  a  bastard  kind  of  an- 
tiquity into  your  parlour,  the  last  carries  men  back  into  antiquity 
itself — Michaud — Barente — Thierry — Thiers — Mignet — Guizot — 
Sismondi — Chateaubriand — The  modern  French  Historian  is  hke 
the  old  French  Novelist,  and  attempts  rather  to  paint  than  to  describe 
— Why? — History  only  interesting  to  those  persons  whose  actions 
make  history,  and  whose  fortunes  are  affected  by  it — The  diffusion 
of  honours,  of  employments,  of  property,  has  diffused  the  interest 
of  history — The  Historian  writes  now  to  a  country  where  he  wrote 
formerly  to  a  clique— He  adopts,  therefore,  a  popular  style,  and  ap- 
peals to  the  senses  instead  of  to  the  judgment. 

Confined,  as  I  now  am,  in  the  observations  I  have 
to  make  on  this  part  of  my  subject,  I  shall  proceed  to 
consider  French  literature  in  its  two  most  important 
divisions — History  and  the  Drama ;  and  perhaps  the 
first  thing  to  strike  us  in  the  present  literature  of  France 
is,  that  it  is,  for  the  first,  pre-eminent  in  historical  com- 
position. 

The  old  chronicles,  indeed,  were  bold  and  rigorous — 
the  bones,  if  I  may  use  such  an  expression,  with  which 
a  history  might  have  been  formed  ;  but  the  innumer- 
able memoirs  which  succeeded  them,  and  in  which  the 
courtly  times  of  France  are  handed  down  to  posterity, 
appear  as  compiled  exaggerations  of  the  fashionable 

.icles  which  could  to-day  be  taken  from  the  Morn- 
mg  Post.  Alas  !  the  authors  of  these  memoirs  never 
spoke,  wrote,  or  thought  of  the  nation.  They  were 
satisfied  in  recording  the  minutest  whisper  that  creeped 
around  the  precincts  of  the  throne.  "  Have  you  heard 
the  most  miraculous,  the  most  extraordinar}^,  the  most 
stupendous  thing  in  the  world  ?"  says  Madame  de  Se- 
vigne,  in  her  memorable  letter  which  announced  the 
possibility  of  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Orleans  con- 


HISTORY.  143 

descending  to  ally  herself  with  the  Due  de  Lauzun. 
M.  de  Turenne,  says  D'Angeau — from  the  utmost 
height  of  his  sublime  gravity — M.  de  Turenne,  eldest 
son  of  M.  de  Bouillon,  and  "  grand  chambellan  en  sur- 
vivance,"  struck  the  king's  nose  the  other  day  in  giving 
him  his  shirt. 

"  Le  roi  se  promena  dans  ses  jardins  ou  il  s'amuse 
k  voir  planter,  il  faisait  un  tems  effroyable  et  le  cha- 
peau  du  roi  etait  perce  :  on  envoya  le  port-manteau 
chercherun  autre.  Le  port-manteau  donna  le  chapeau 
au  Due  de  Nismes  qui  sert  pour  le  D.  d'Aumont  qui 
est  en  annee.  Le  Due  de  Nismes  le  presenta  au  roi ; 
mais  Mons.  de  la  Rochefoucauld  pretendit  que  c'etait 
a  lui  de  le  donner  et  que  le  D.  de  Nismes  empietait 
sur  ses  fonctions.  Ceci  a  fait  une  assez  grande  affaire 
entre  eux  quoiqu'ils  fussent  bons  amis." 

"  On  one  of  his  days  of  business,  Louis  XIV.,"  says 
Madame  de  Maintenon's  memoirs,  "  remained  with 
this  lady  but  a  short  time  before  the  minister  came  in, 
and  a  still  shorter  time  after  he  had  gone  out.  His 
majesty  went  to  the  '  chaise  percee^^  returned  to  the  bed 
of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  where  he  stood  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  then  wishing  her  good-night,  sat  down  to 
table." 

The  enumeration  of  facts  like  these  is  so  far  im- 
portant :  when  you  see  what  the  court  was  that  gov- 
erned the  country,  you  may  come  pretty  accurately  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  country  was  very  ill  governed. 

But  for  thinking  of  the  country  at  all,  as  you  read 
some  hundreds  of  volumes,  you  are  entirely  indebted 
to  a  patriotic  imagination.  After  the  great  tire  which 
destroyed  Rennes,  there  were  discovered  among  the 
ruins  different  coagulated  masses  of  various  colours, 
out  of  which  a  vast  number  of  pretty  ornaments  were 
made  ;  and  it  was  from  these  useless  trinkets  on  some 
ladies'  dress  that  the  greater  part  of  France  became 
informed  that  the  capital  of  a  province  had  been  de- 
stroyed. So,  during  the  whole  period  I  am  speaking 
of,  it  is  to  some  trumpery  toy,  to  some  paltry  passion, 
to  some  miserable  closet-wise  intrigue,  to  some  crafty 


144  HISTORY. 

confession  of  a  still  more  crafty  mistress,  that  we  are 
to  look,  as  the  signs  and  tokens  of  a  great  people's 
destiny. 

But  if  the  memorialist  was  necessarily  narrow  in  his 
range,  he  at  all  events  contrived  to  give  you  some  idea 
of  the  region  he  described.  Not  so  the  historian. 
While  the  one,  impressed  with  the  greatness  of  his 
subject,  prosaically  repeated  the  chit-chat  of  the  royal 
nursery,  pompously  perorated  upon  the  *'  chaise  percee" 
of  a  king  ;  the  other,  passing  in  contemptuous  silence 
over  the  character,  the  customs,  the  arts  of  the  people 
he  described,  expended  the  fire  of  his  genius  in  a  tre- 
mendous outpouring  of  battles,  sieges,  victories,  de- 
feats, murders,  and  invasions.  Quick  over  your  mind 
rushed  a  deluge  of  dates  and  deaths ;  and  the  people 
who  could  count  the  greatest  number  of  obscure  names 
upon  their  fingers,  and  cite  an  insignificant  fact  with 
the  nicest  accuracy,  were  deemed,  by  all  reputed 
judges,  the  most  accomplished  possessors  of  historical 
lore. 

Voltaire  rescued  history  from  Daniel  and  Griffet. 
The  "  Essai  sur  les  Moeurs,"  in  its  marvellous  com- 
bination of  wit,  research,  and  philosophy,  is,  perhaps, 
one  of  the  most  astonishing  evidences  on  record  of  the 
power  of  the  human  mind ;  but,  wonderful  as  a  testi- 
mony^of  intelligence,  it  is  more  than  imperfect  as  a 
history.  It  wants  the  power,  without  which  all  histoiy 
is  lifeless — it  wants  the  power  which  transports  you 
to  distant  regions  and  to  distant  times,  and  which 
brings  the  dim  face  of  weird  antiquity  plain  and  pal- 
pably before  you  ;  it  wants  the  power  which  makes  you 
look  upon  the  things  and  mingle  with  the  men  that 
are  described.  What  you  see  in  Voltaire's  history  is 
Voltaire.  His  cynical,  intelligent,  and  thoughtful  face 
comes  back  to  you  from  every  page,  as  so  many  re- 
fractions of  the  same  image  from  a  broken  mirror. 
You  never  get  beyond  the  philosopher's  study.  Like 
Don  Quixote  in  the  duke's  castle,  you  pass  through 
every  atmosphere  without  stirring  from  the  same  place. 
It  is  the  shrewd  old  gentleman  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 


HISTORY  145 

tury  talking  to  you  most  sagaciously  about  a  number 
of  things  which  he  has  got  carefully  under  lock  and 
key,  and  will  never  let  yon  get  a  glimpse  of. 

I  forget  who  it  is  who  says,  that  what  is  most  visible 
in  the  history  of  every  time  is  the  time  of  the  histo- 
rian writing ;  this,  which  is  true  of  all  the  historians 
of  the  Voltairian  school,  is  especially  true  of  Voltaire. 
He  looks  at  every  thing,  and  argues  upon  every  thing, 
with  the  eyes  and  with  the  feelings  not  merely  of  his 
own  age,  but  of  his  own  country  and  his  own  clique. 

We  know  that  Herodotus  relates  of  the  Babylonian 
ladies,  that  they  were  all  obliged,  once  at  least  in  their 
lives,  to  prostitute  themselves  to  strangers  in  the 
temple  of  Milita,  or  Venus.  "Can  any  one,"  cries 
Voltaire,  "  believe  in  such  a  story  ?  Is  it  likely — is  it 
possible  that  such  a  custom  should  exist  among  a 
people  in  any  state  of  refinement? — What  is  not 
natural  is  never  true."  "  Now,"  says  Grimm,  "  it 
would  be  very  difficult  to  say  what  is  natural ;  and  if  we 
were  to  strike  out  from  history  every  thing  that  seemed 
unnatural  to  us,  there  would  only  remain  the  chronicle 
of  our  own  times."  Did  Grimm  say  the  truth  ?  Cer- 
tainly, human  sacrifices  in  any  state  of  society  are  not 
very  natural.  Suicide,  which  was  a  fashion  among 
one  of  the  most  sensible  people  in  the  world,  was  one 
of  the  most  unnatural  fashions  that  can  well  be  ima- 
gined. It  is  not  very  long  ago  that  it  was  the  fashion  in 
England  for  all  young  ladies  to  wear  pads,  in  order  to 
make  them  appear  with  child  ;  which,  among  a  people 
who  set  the  highest  value  on  female  chastity,  was  also 
very  unnatural,  surely.  The  law  of  Babylon  was  at 
least  as  natural  as  the  vow  of  celibacy  ;  nor  are  we  to 
suppose  that,  if  the  Babylonish  ladies  were  refined, 
their  notions  of  refinement  must  necessarily  have  re- 
sembled those  of  the  Parisians.  But  the  best  part  of 
the  story  is,  that  not  above  half  a  century  after  Voltaire 
wrote,  a  person  appeared  in  France,  actually  in  France, 
who  preached  nearly  the  same  doctrines  in  the  Chaus- 
see  d'Antin  that,  Herodotus  says,  were  followed  in 
Babvlon.     Nay,  there  was  even  a  moment  of  doubt  as 


146  HISTORY. 

to  whether  the  father  of  this  creed  was  not  a  true 
prophet ;  many  have  even  still  a  faith  in  his  success ; 
so  that,  after  all,  what  the  Babylonian  ladies  practised 
as  a  solemn  ceremony,  the  French  ladies  are  not  in- 
duced to  shudder  at  from  social  usage.  A  man  who 
says,  "  what  is  not  natural  cannot  be  true,"  and  who 
looks  at  nature  through  the  prism  of  his  own  epoch, 
cannot  be  a  good  historian ;  and  Voltaire,  with  the  in- 
dustry which  Gibbon  acknowledged,  and  the  genius 
which  no  one  disputes,  was  not  a  good  historian. 

But  the  chief  portion  of  that  public  for  which  Vol 
taire  wrote  was  a  knot  of  philosophers,  who  imagined 
the  time  in  which  they  lived  a  golden  climax  in  civili- 
zation ;  who  really  thought  they  could  measure  all 
things  past,  present,  and  to  come,  by  the  ideal  stand- 
ard they  had  set  up  in  their  own  minds ;  who  looked 
back  to  history,  not  to  form  their  opinions,  but  to  illus- 
trate their  doctrines,  and  who,  when  the  facts  which 
they  read  clashed  with  the  theories  they  believed,  de- 
nounced the  facts  to  cherish  the  theories.  These  men 
had  no  idea  of  a  virtue  that  was  different  from  their 
virtue ;  of  the  power  and  the  force  of  a  genius  which 
was  not  cast  in  the  mould  of  their  own  minds.  They 
were  at  once  too  speculative  to  be  struck  by  a  picture, 
and  too  proud  to  think  that  the  darker  ages  were  worth 
portraying;  all  they  wished  for  were  reasonings 
similar  to  their  own — the  description  of  other  times, 
which  did  not  take  them  from  theirs ; — and  the  writer 
who  pleased  them  most,  was  the  one  who  took  a  lesson 
from  the  artist,  and  drew  Hercules  in  the  costume  of 
Louis  XIV.  Such  were  the  men  who  formed  the 
chief  part  of  that  public  for  which  Voltaire  wrote  ;  and 
to  these  men  were  joined  others  equally  cold  and  equally 
fastidious.  Courtiers,  whose  ideas  were  in  rows, 
stiff  and  trim  like  the  trees  at  Versailles  ;  who  were 
easily  shocked,  who  could  not  be  astonished,  who  liked 
to  fancy  they  were  being  instructed,  and  who  only 
wished  to  be  amused.  The  popular  writer  of  tlie  day 
mirrored  forth  the  taste  of  the  popular  critics  of  the 
day,  and  wit  and  dissertation  were  the  combined  ma- 
terials to  please  the  two  classes  of  those  critics. 


HISTORY.  147 

But  when  a  new  school  of  history  arose,  it  drew 
more  especially  from  the  stores  which  its  predecessors 
had  cautiously  neglected. 

*'  Time,"  said  the  Encyclopedists,*  "  is  too  precious 
and  the  space  of  history  too  immense,  to  give  the 
reader  ridiculous  fables  and  absurd  theories  of  ignorant 
men." — "  Without  crediting  the  fables  of  ancient 
writers,"  says  M.  Michaud,  "  I  have  not  disdained  to 
make  use  of  them  for  what  these  writers  said  their  con- 
temporaries believed ;  and  in  so  much  they  show  the 
manners,  and  the  ideas,  and  the  knowledge  which  pre- 
vailed at  the  period  they  describe."!  Here  then  are 
the  two  schools  in  direct  opposition.  The  first  brought 
a  bastard  kind  of  antiquity  into  your  parlour;  the 
second  would  carry  you  back  into  antiquity  itself.  In- 
stead of  reasoning  upon  the  acts  of  your  ancestors,  the 
modern  historian  would  show  you  those  ancestors 
themselves,  clad  in  the  panoply,  the  passions,  and  the 
prejudices  of  olden  time.  The  writer  of  the  "  Cru- 
sades" does  not  coldly  tell  you  that  the  religious  ad- 
venturers, who  poured  mto  Palestine,  were  a  set  of 
superstitious  soldiers  cased  in  mail.  No :  you  see 
the  sun  shine  on  their  glittering  harness  ;  you  hear 
them  shouting,  "  Dieu  le  veut,"  as  they  rush  to  battle. 
Lo !  there  are  the  warlike  fanatics  marching  upon 
Jerusalem  I  "  They  have  fasted  for  three  days,  and, 
sallying  forth,  at  length  they  walk,  their  weapons  in 
their  hands,  but  their  feet  bare,  and  their  heads  un- 
covered. Thus  they  walk  three  times  round  the  sacred 
city ;  and  before  them  march  their  priests,  robed  in 
white,  and  carrying  the  images  of  saints,  and  singing 
psalms  ;  and  the  banners  are  unfurled,  and  loud  sounds 
the  timbrel  and  the  trumpet ;  for  thus  was  it  that  the 
Israelites  had  thrice  made  the  tour  of  Jericho,  the  walls 
of  which  crumbled  to  pieces  at  the  sound  of  the  war- 
like music."* 

*  *  ♦  » 


*  Art.  "  Histoire."    First  edit.  Encyclopedia, 
t  Michaud's  "  Exposition  de  I'Histoire  des  Croisadw." 
%  Michaud.  vol.  i.  p.  412.    Hist,  des  Croisade*. 
G3 


148  HISTORY. 

"  I  have  endeavoured,"  says  M.  de  Barante,*  '« to 
restore  to  history  the  charm  of  the  romance,  which 
the  romance  had,  in  fact,  borrowed  from  history  ;"  and 
so  in  a  work,  a  model  of  its  kind,  this  modern  histo- 
rian continually  cites  the  old  chronicles,  and  borrows 
himself  something  of  their  simple,  and  perhaps  bar- 
barous style  of  narrative,  telling  you  things  in  the 
tone,  and  with  the  colouring  of  a  contemporary.  The 
erudition  which  makes  most  works  dry,  makes  his  de- 
lightful.f  You  see  Charles  the  Bold,  his  long  black 
hair  floating  in  the  wind,  his  proud  lip  trembling,  and 
his  swart  face  pale  with  passion.  You  know  the  very 
name  of  his  coal-black  charger ;  and  before  him  are 
the  Swiss  on  their  knees,  and  the  heavens  clearing  at 
their  prayer ;  and  there  you  read  how  the  Burgundians 
beseeched  their  prince  to  remember  "  his  poor  peo- 
ple," and  how  the  clergy  told  him  that  he  was  de- 
feated because  he  taxed  the  church.  The  age  speaks 
to  you  in  its  own  language,  and  expresses  its  own 
ideas.  You  make  acquaintance  with  its  personages, 
as  they  existed  in  the  flesh  and  blood ;  you  learn  its 
manners  without  knowing  you  have  been  taught  them. 
The  first  author  of  the  school  that  I  read  was  M. 
Thierry,  and  I  yet  remember  the  pleasure  I  felt  at  the 
following  simple,  but,  I  think,  very  admirable  passage, 
in  that  part  of  his  history  which  relates  to  the  Norman 
descent. 

"  And  now  there  arrived  from  Rome  the  conse- 
crated flag,  and  the  bull  which  authorized  the  descent 
upon  England.  The  eagerness  increased.  Every  one 
contributed  to  the  enterprise  as  best  he  could ;  and 
even  mothers  sent  their  favourite  children  to  enlist  for 
the  sake  of  their  souls.  William  published  his  war- 
ban  in  the  countries  adjacent :  he  ofTev^d  a  large  sum, 

*  Histoire  du  Due  de  Burgoine  :  Preface, 

t  M.  de  Barante  is  called  a  copyist  ;  and  so  he  Is  a  copyist  of  the 
old  writers,  from  whom  he  has  taken  his  materials.  But  if  an  his- 
torian has  any  merit  in  infusing  into  you  the  spirit  of  the  times 
whose  actions  he  is  narrating,  to  copy  the  writers  of  those  times  is 
a  necessity,  and  not  a  fault. 


HISTORY.  149 

and  the  pillage  of  England,  to  every  man  of  tall  and 
robust  stature  who  would  serve  either  with  the  lance, 
the  sword,  or  the  cross-bow ;  and  a  multitude  poured 
in  from  all  parts,  from  far  and  near,  from  north  and 
from  south  ;  from  Maine  and  from  Anjou,  from  Poitou 
and  from  Brittany,  from  France  and  from  Flanders,  from 
Aquitaine  and  from  Burgundy,  from  Piedmont  and  the 
borders  of  the  Rhine ;  all  the  adventurers  by  profes- 
sion, all  the  brave  and  vagabond  spirits  of  Europe, 
came  eagerly  and  gladly  at  his  call.  Some  were 
knights  and  captains  of  war ;  others  simple  foot-sol- 
diers and  '  servants  at  arms,' — such  was  the  phrase 
of  the  time. — These  demanded  money  in  hand;  those, 
their  passage,  and  all  the  booty  they  could  gain. 
Many  wished  for  an  estate   in  England,  a  domain,  a 

castle,  a  town — or  simply  bargained  for  a  Saxon  wife. 

*  *  *  * 

"  William  refused  no  one." 

*  *  #  * 

"  And  during  the  spring  and  the  summer,  in  all  parts 
of  Normandy,  workmen  of  all  kinds  were  employed 
in  constructing  and  in  equipping  vessels.  Here  were 
the  blacksmiths  and  the  armourers  fabricating  lances 
and  coats  of  mail — and  there  were  the  porters  in- 
cessantly carrying  arms  from  the  workshops  to  the 
ships — and  during  these  preparations  William  pre- 
sented himself  at  St.  Germain's  to  the  King  of  the 
French,  and  saluting  him  with  a  deference  which  his 
ancestors  had  not  always  paid  to  the  kings  of  France  : 
*  You  are  my  seigneur,'  said  he  ;  *  if  it  please  you 
to  aid  me,  and  that  God  give  me  grace  to  obtain  my 
right  in  England,  I  promise  to  do  homage  to  you  for 
that  realm,  as  if  I  held  it  of  you.'  Philip  assembled 
his  council  of  barons  and  of  freemen,  without  whom 
he  could  decid^  no  important  affair,  and  the  barons 
were  of  opinion  that  he  could  in  nowise  aid  William 
in  his  conquest. 

"  *  You  know,'  said  they  to  their  king,  '  how  little 
the  Normans  obey  you  now — they  will  obey  you  less 
if  thev  have  England.  Besides,  it  wiU  be  a  grej^t  ex^ 
13* 


150  HISTORY. 

pense  to  aid  the  duke  in  his   enterprise  ;  and  if  it  fail 
we  shall  have  the  English  for  our  mortal  enemies.' 

"  William,  thus  treated,  retired  ill  contented  from 
Philip. 


"  The  rendezvous  for  the  vessels  and  men  at  arms 
was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dive,  a  river  which  falls  into 
the  sea  between  the  Seine  and  the  Orme.  For  a 
month  the  winds  were  contrary,  and  the  Norman  fleet 
was  retained  in  the  harbour.  At  length  a  southern 
breeze  carried  it  to  St.  Valery  near  Dieppe.  There 
the  bad  weather  recommenced,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  cast  anchor  and  wait  for  several  days. — During  this 
delay  the  tempest  shattered  several  vessels,  and  many 
of  their  crew  perished.  And  at  this  accident,  mur- 
murings  arose  among  the  troops,  already  fatigued  with 
their  long  encampment.  The  soldiers,  idle  in  their 
tents,  passed  the  day  in  conversing  upon  the  dangers 
of  the  voyage,  and  the  dilSiculties  of  the  enterprise 
they  were  undertaking. 

" '  There  has  yet  been  no  battle,'  they  said,  '  and 
already  several  of  our  companions  are  no  more  ;'  and 
then  they  calculated  and  examined  the  number  of  dead 
bodies  which  the  sea  had  thrown  upon  the  sands.  And 
these  reports  abated  the  ardour  of  the  adventurers  who 
had  enlisted  with  so  much  zeal ;  so  that  some  broke 
their  engagement  and  retired. 

"  In  the  mean  time  William,  in  order  to  check  a  dis- 
position so  fatal  to  his  projects,  had  the  dead  buried 
secretly,  and  increased  the  supply  of  victuals  and 
strong  liquors.  But  the  same  thoughts  of  regret  and 
discouragement  still  recurred.  '  Very  foolish,'  said 
the  soldiers,  '  very  foolish  is  the  man  who  pretends  to 
conquer  another's  land  !  God  is  often  led  at  such  de- 
signs, and  now  he  shows  his  anger  by  refusing  us  a 
favourable  wind !'  At  last,  perhaps  from  real  super- 
stition, perhaps  for  the  mere  purpose  of  distracting 
their  followers  from  unwelcome  thoughts,  the  Norman 
chiefs    conducted  the  relics  of  St.  Valery  in  great 


HISTORY  151 

pomp  and  with  a  long  procession  through  the  camp. 
All  the  army  began  to  pray ;  and  the  following  night 
the  fleet  had  the  wind  they  wished  for. 

"  And  now,  four  hundred  ships  with  large  sails  and 
upwards  of  one  thousand  boats  of  transport,  started 
from  the  shore  at  the  same  signal.  The  vessel  of 
William  took  the  lead,  and  he  carried  at  his  mast's 
head  the  banner  sent  from  the  pope,  and  a  cross  upon 
his  flag.  The  sails  were  of  divers  colours,  and  in 
many  parts  of  them  were  painted  the  three  lions,  the 
arms  of  the  Normans  ;  and  at  the  prow  was  carved 
the  face  of  a  child  carrying  a  bent  bow  with  an  arrow 
ready  to  fly  forth.  This  vessel,  a  better  sailer  than 
the  rest,  headed  the  expedition  during  the  day,  and 
at  night  was  far  in  the  advance.  On  the  following 
morning  the  duke  bade  a  sailor  climb  to  the  top  of 
the  mainmast  and  see  if  there  were  any  other  vessels 
coming.  *  I  only  see,'  said  the  sailor,  *  the  sky  and 
the  sea,' — and  thereupon  the  anchor  was  cast. 

"  The  duke  aflfected  a  gayety  that  was  to  put  down 
any  appearance  of  care  or  fear  among  his  friends,  and 
he  ordered  a  sumptuous  repast  and  wines  highly 
spiced.  Anon,  the  sailor  mounted  again ;  and  this 
time  he  said  he  saw  four  vessels,  and  presently  after- 
ward he  cried,  *  I  see  a  forest  of  masts  and  sails.' 
***** 

"Now  while  this  great  armament  was  preparing  in 
Normandy,  Harold  the  Norwegian,  faithful  to  his  en- 
gagements towards  the  Saxon  Tostig,  had  assembled 
his  soldiers  and  some  hundreds  of  vessels  of  war  and 
transports.  The  fleet  remained  some  time  at  anchor, 
and  the  Norwegian  army  awaiting  the  signal  for  de- 
parture, encamped  on  the  coast,  as  the  Norman  army 
had  encamped  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dive. 

"  There  also,  vague  impressions  of  discouragement 
and  inquie.'ude  manifested  themselves,  and  under  ap- 
pearances }et  more  gloomy  and  conformable  with  the 
visionary  imagination  of  the  north.  Many  soldiers 
thought  thai  they  received  prophetic  revelations  in 
their  sleep.     One  imagined  that  he  saw  his  companions 


152  HISTORY. 

debarking  on  the  English  coast,  and  in  presence  of  the 
English  army ;  and  that  before  the  front  of  that  army 
a  woman  of  gigantic  stature  galloped — a  wolf  for  her 
steed.  The  wolf  held  in  its  jaws  a  human  corpse 
dripping  with  blood,  and  as  the  wolf  devoured  one 
corpse  the  woman  gave  it  another. 

"  A  second  soldier  dreamed  that  the  fleet  was  depart- 
ing, and  that  a  cloud  of  ravens,  and  vultures,  and  other 
birds  of  prey  settled  upon  the  masts ;  and  that  on  a 
neighbouring  rock  sat  a  female,  holding  a  naked  sword, 
counting  and  regarding  the  ships.  '  Go,'  said  she  to 
the  birds  ;  '  go  without  fear — you  will  have  to  feast — 
you  will  have  to  choose — for  I  go  with  them — I  go 
there.'  And  his  followers  remarked,  not  without  ter- 
ror, that  when  Harold  put  his  foot  upon  the  royal  '  cha- 
louipe^  the  weight  of  his  body  pressed  it  down  into 
the  water  more  than  usual." 


This  is  a  picture  where  the  skill  of  the  artist  is 
conspicuous  in  the  ease  of  his  work. 

In  these  two  or  three  pages  you  find  almost  every 
thing  which  could  be  told  you  characteristic  of  the 
time  described.  You  learn  the  nature  of  the  Norman 
troops,  the  manner  in  which  they  enrolled,  the  hopes 
which  they  entertained,  the  very  arms  with  which  they 
fought ;  their  restlessness  and  their  superstition.  And 
by  the  side  of  the  Normans  come  yet  more  darkly  out 
the  savage  and  mysterious  dispositions  of  the  Norwe- 
gian bands  ;  and  you  see  at  once  that  William  was  a 
great  commander,  and  a  valiant  and  crafty  man.  A 
child,  who  read  the  passage  I  have  cited,  would  be  im- 
pressed with  all  these  facts  ;  and  yet  there  has  been 
no  laying  down  the  law,  no  teaching,  no  prosing,  no 
explaining. 

And  now  let  us  turn  from  this  eloquent  description 
of  the  feudal  time  to  the  awful  narrative  of  our  own. 
^t  us  take  up  M.  Thiers  !*     For  the  somewhat  sol- 

*  La  Revolution  Fran^aise. 


HISTORY.  153 

emn  and  chivalric  gravity  which  suited  the  chronicles 
of  the  olden  day,  you  have  the  vivid  colouring,  the 
rush  of  thought  and  style,  the  glow  and  flash  of  ex- 
pression, which,  startling  at  every  step,  carries  you 
with  an  appropriate  pace  over  thrones,  and  over  con- 
stitutions, and  over  the  mangled  bodies  of  noble  and 
mistaken  men,  down  the  fiery  and  precipitous  path  of 
a  revolution  destined  to  destroy.  And  here  you  see 
Mirabeau,  "  terrible  in  the  ugliness  of  his  genius,"* 
hesitating  (his  great  brow  labouring  with  his  idea),  and 
then  bursting  on  to  the  expression  that  he  sought,  his 
words  falling  like  a  torrent  from  chasm  to  chasm,  vio- 
lent, irresistible,  abrupt.  And  here  you  see  the  gigantic 
Danton,  at  the  head  of  the  dark  multitude  which 
stormed  the  Tuileries  on  the  10th  of  August,!  waving 
that  terrible  and  daring  hand,  a  fatal  signal  to  the  pro- 
scribed !  And  lo !  Marat,+  hid  during  the  attack  in 
some  obscure  retreat,  has  come  out  since  the  victory, 
and  marches,  flourishing  a  sabre  through  the  town,  at 
the  head  of  the  fierce  Marseillians,  while  "  the  neat 
and  respectable-looking"  Robespiere  delivers  to  "  the 
Jacobins"  one  of  his  "  doctoral  harangues."  I  hardly 
know  any  passage  in  history  more  powerful  than  that 
one  in  vol.  iii.  page  53,  which  begins  "  La  terreur  reg- 
nait  dans  Paris  .  .  .  ." 

It  is  not  eloquent  in  point  of  diction.  The  narrative 
of  those  dreadful  days,  which  Danton  commenced  by 
the  declaration,  "  QuHl  fallait  faire  peur  aux  Royal- 
istes"  is  told  in  the  simplest  and  least  pretending  man- 
ner ;  but  from  the  moment  that  these  words  have 
passed  that  terrible  man's  lips,  a  kind  of  mysterious 
horror  breathes  over  the  page  :  you  feel  that  something 
sickening  is  to  come :  sentence  after  sentence  this 
sensation  grows  upon  yoUj  and  the  object  on  which 
your  apprehensions  are  to  rest  is  now  gradually  and 
artfully  pointed  out : — Madame  Fausse  Landry  entreats 
to  be  permitted  to  share  the  captivity  of  her  uncle, 
*'  the  Abbe  de  Rastignac,"  and  Sergeni  answers  her  by 

*  La  Revolution  FraiKjaise,  p.  5,  vol.  iii.         f  Ibid  p.  124,  vol.  i. 
6  Ibid.  p.  54. 

G3 


154 


saying,  "  Vous  faites  une  imprudence  les  prisons  ne 
sont  pas  surest  Then  comes  the  declaration  of  Dan- 
ton  the  day  after — "  The  cannon  you  are  about  to  hear 
is  not  the  cannon  of  alarm,  c'est  le  pas  de  charge  sur 
les  ennemis  de  la  patrie." 


Then — "La  ville  entiere  etait  debout.     Une  ter- 

reur  profonde  regnait  dans  les  prisons .  .  .  Les  geoliers 

semblaient  consternes.      Celui   de  TAbbaye,   des  le 

matin  fait  sortir  sa  femme  et  ses  enfans.     Le  diner 

avait   ete    servi   aux   prisonniers  deux  heures  avant 

I'instant  accoutume  ;  tous  les  couteaux  avaient  ete  retires 

le  leur  serviettey 

*  *  *  #  * 

At  length  the  tocsin  sounds,  the  cannon's  heavy 
peal  rolls  through  the  city,  the  people  rush  to  the 
Champ  de  Mars,  throng  round  the  "  Commune"  and 
the  "  Assembly,"  and  group  together  in  the  great 
square.  It  is  now,  at  this  moment  of  gloom,  of  tu- 
mult, and  agitation,  chosen  by  chance  or  by  intention 
for  the  purpose,  that  twenty-four  priests  are  taken  from 
the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  be  transferred  to  the  Abbaye. 
They  are  put  into  six  hackney-coaches,  and  conducted 
at  a  slow  pace  along  the  Quais,  and  by  the  Pont  Neuf 
to  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain.  The  savage  and  ex- 
cited crowds  kindle  at  the  sight  like  hounds  in  view 
of  their  prey  ;  they  grind  their  teeth,  they  howl  round 
the  carriage  ;  they  follow  it ;  they  butcher,  they  tear 
these  unhappy  men  to  pieces,  as  one  by  one  they  de- 
scend in  the  court  of  the  Abbaye. 

This  is  the  first  scene  of  Liberty's  St.  Bartholo- 
mew.* ....  And  now  arrives  Billaud  Varennes.  He 
comes  decorated  with  his  official  badge  ;  walks  through 
the  splashing  blood,  and  over  the  mangled  bodies, 
speaks  to  the  crowd  of  assassins,  and  says,  "  People  ! 
thou  slayest  thy  enemies,  and  thou  doest  well!" — 
"  There  is  nothing  more  to  do  here !"  cries  Maillard. 

*  The  too  famous  massacres  of  September,  1792. 


HISTORY.  155 

**  AUons  aux  Carmes ;"  and  to  the  Cannes  they  go ; 
murder  two  hundred  priests  more,  and  then  return  to 
the  Abbaye  ;  and  here  Maillard  calls  for  wine  "  joowr 
les  braves  travailleurs,  qui  deliverent  la  nation  de  ses 
ennemis.^^  And  wine  is  served  in  the  court,  and  these 
wretches  drink  and  make  merry,  and  shout  and  revel ; 
and  around  them  are  the  ghastly  carcasses  of  those 
whom  they  had  butchered  in  the  morning. 

Let  us  pass  from  this  scene,  sketched  with  too  hor- 
rible a  truth !  ....  In  the  action  of  his  narrative,  and 
in  the  vividness  of  his  paintings,  consists  M.  Thiers's 
most  remarkable  merits  as  an  historian  ;  but  his  work, 
remarkable  for  its  vivacity,  is  also  remarkable  for  its 
clearness — while  it  displays  a  spirit  that  would  be 
singularly  impartial — were  it  not  warped  at  times  by 
a  system,  false,  because  it  denies  the  possibility  of  an 
accident — horrible,  because  it  breaks  down  all  distinc- 
tion between  crime  and  virtue,  making  both  the  neces- 
sity of  a  position. 

M.  Mignet,  who  has  written  upon  the  same  epoch 
as  M.  Thiers,  has  been  guilty  of  the  same  fault.  He 
too  has  seen  an  infernal  fatalism  connecting  all  the 
horrors  with  all  the  energies — all  the  crimes  with  all 
the  triumphs  of  the  revolution.* 

*  According  to  this  system,  all  the  terrible  leaders  of  that  time  are 
concentrated,  as  it  were,  into  one  executioner,  all  society  into  one 
malefactor.  Now,  Mr.  Executioner,  strike  off  the  head  of  your 
victim ;  nobody  can  call  you  a  bad  man — you  are  only  doing  your 
duty,  the  duty  to  which  Providence  has  set  you,  and  it  is  all  for  the 
benefit  of  the  world,  and  for  the  advantage  of  future  geneiations ! 
If  the  poor  creature  delivered  to  you  be  innocent,  be  no  male- 
factor, that  is  no  business  of  yours — the  law,  t.  e.  the  law  of  destiny, 
has  decided  that  you  shall  strike ;  therefore  be  quick,  and  never  think 
there  is  any  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  your  task,  though  it  be  a  bloody; 
one.  Good  God !  what  a  progress  has  the  human  mind  made  in  forty 
years!  We  are  now.  doubting  whether  society  has  the  right  to 
inflict  death  on  an  individual ;  we  were  then  believing  that  two 
or  three  individuals  had  a  right  to  murder  all  society.  "  Accord- 
ing to  Messrs.  Thiers  and  Mignet,"  says  M.  de  Chateaubriand, 
*'  the  historian  must  speak  of  the  greatest  atrocities  without  in- 
dignation— of  the  noblest  virtues  without  affection.  II  faut  que  d'un 
ceil  glace  il  regarde  la  societe  comme  soumise  a  certaines  lois  irre- 
sistibles,  de  mani^re  que  chaque  chose  arrive  comme  elle  devait 
inevitablement  arriver.  L'innocent  ou  I'homme  de  g6nie  doit  mourir, 
non  pas  parcequ'il  est  innocent,  ou  homme  de  g6nie     Mais  parceque 


156  HISTORY. 

But,  looking  at  these  authors  apart  from  their  theory, 
the  work  of  M.  Mignet  is  as  incomparable  for  fixing 
and  concentrating  your  thoughts  as  that  of  M.  Thiers 
is  for  developing  and  awakening  your  ideas.  M.  Cha- 
teaubriand calls  the  work  of  M.  Thiers*  a  splendid 
picture,  the  work  of  M.  Mignet  a  vigorous  sketch  :t  it 
is  impossible  to  choose  a  word  so  ill-applied  to  M. 

sa  mort  est  necessaire,  et  que  sa  vie  mettrait,  obstacle  a  un  fait 
general  place  dans  la  serie  des  evenements."  And  who  is  to  judge 
of  this  necessity  ?  The  man  of  power  will  always  think  that  neces- 
sary for  the  benefit  of  mankind  which  is  necessary  for  his  own  advan- 
tage. Every  wretch  who  wishes  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of 
society  will  think,  if  he  attain  its  summit  for  a  moment,  that  it  is  for  the 
advantage  of  the  world,  and  that  Providence  requires  that  he  should 
maintain  himself  there  by  shooting  little  children,  and  drowning 
pregnant  women,  and  massacring  aged  and  feeble  priests;  and 
Carrier  and  Le  Bon  will  pass  to  posterity  as  patterns  of  those  apostles 
whom  God  has  designed  to  be  the  harbingers  of  liberty,  prosperity, 
and  civilization. 

But  the  folly  of  this  system  is  equal,  if  that  be  possible,  to  its  horror 
and  its  danger.  Tne  Prussians  retired  before  Dumourier,  and  there 
were  the  massacres  of  September ! — ergo,  the  massacres  of  Sep- 
teniber  saved  the  capital  of  Paris.  Was  it  the  massacres  of  September 
which  gave  Dumourier  his  quick  eye,  his  extraordinary  activity,  his 
great  courage  and  enterprise  /  Suppose  he  had  been  a  stupid  and  a 
slow  fellow — a  bad  general — what  then?  Did  the  massacres  of 
September  inspire  him  with  one  plan  for  his  campaign,  and  his  councii 
of  war  with  another  ?  Did  the  massacres  of  September  show  him  the 
march  across  the  forest  of  Argone,  or  the  passage  of  the  Aisne  ?  Did 
the  massacres  of  September  place  him  on  the  heights  of  Valmy  ?  A 
false  step,  a  wrong  position,  and  then  what  would  have  been  the 
result  of  the  massacres  of  September  ? — Why,  the  establishment  of 
the  old  despotism  by  foreign  hands,  and  the  preference,  among  all 
sober  men,  of  that  despotism  to  the  bloody,  and  inhuman,  and  beastly, 
and  infernal  tyranny  that  had  preceded  it ;  the  re-estabhshment  of  a 
despotism  which  would  have  stood  upon  those  massacres  firmer  than 
upon  a  rock  of  adamant ;  while  a  sacred  execration  would  have  been 
bequeathed  to  all  ptsterity  for  every  man,  however  pure  his  motives 
or  upright  his  intentions,  who  stood  forward  with  the  title  of 
"  reformer." 

The  comparative  moderation  of  the  directory,  the  glory,  the  laws, 
the  order  of  empire,  the  long  confusion  of  ranks,  and  the  continued 
division  of  fortunes,  made  what  had  been  the  reveries  of  philosophers 
the  habits  of  a  people  ;  and  these  habits,  habits  which  could  never 
have  grown  up  without  domestic  tranquilUty  and  security,  were  in- 
compatible with  a  court  despotism  and  the  old  distinctions.  But  for 
this  the  people  of  France  are  mainly  indebted,  I  repeat,  to  the  laws 
of  the  empire,  and  not  to  the  massacres  of  the  republic. 

*  The  work  of  M.  Thiers  is  in  ten  volumes,  that  of  M.  Mignet  in 
two. 

t  M.  de  Chateaubriand  seems  to  think  that  every  thing  on  a  large 
•cale  must  be  a  picture,  and  every  thing  on  a  small  one  a  sketch. 


HISTORY.  167 

Mignet*s  work  as  that  word  '*  sketch."  Were  the  word 
applicable  to  either  work,  it  would  be  far  more  appli- 
cable to  the  work  of  M.  Thiers,  which,  varied,  ani- 
mated, and  full  of  interest,  is  nevertheless  in  many- 
parts  hasty  and  unfinished.  The  peculiar  beauty  of 
M.  Mignet's  work,  on  the  contrary,  is  its  perfect  finish, 
Its  accurate  and  nicely  adjusted  proportions,  its  com- 
pleteness in  every  one  of  its  parts.  Each  epoch  of 
the  revolution  stands  just  as  it  should  do  in  respect  to 
the  other,  and  occupies  precisely  the  space  it  should 
do  to  harmonize  with  what  follows  and  precedes  it. 
Comprising  every  circumstance  within  the  smallest 
possible  compass,  M.  Mignet  has  given  every  circum- 
stance its  exact  and  proper  effect — looking  at  the 
events  of  those  times  with  a  magnifying-glass,  he  has 
reflected  them  in  a  mirror.  Many  of  his  reflections 
are  at  once  just,  simple,  and  profound ;  his  descrip- 
tions, rarer  and  shorter  than  those  of  M.  Thiers,  are 
still  paintings.  We  see  Camille  Desmoulins  (the  me- 
morable 12th  of  July)  mounted  on  a  table  in  the  Palais 
Royal,  a  pistol  in  his  hand,  and  shouting  "  to  arms  !" 
We  see  the  bust  of  Necker,  in  those  first  days  when 
the  demands  of  liberty  were  so  moderate,  crowned  with 
mulberry  leaves,  and  carried  (singular  ensign  of  revo- 
lutionary tumult)  round  the  city  of  Paris.  And  soon 
we  see  (10th  of  August)  the  corpulent  and  irresolute 
rather  than  timid  king  reviewing,  with  downcast  look, 
the  gallant  and  generous  Swiss,  who,  far  from  their 
mountains,  their  simplicity,  and  their  freedom,  v/ere 
burning  with  a  loyal  and  chivalric  enthusiasm,  and 
eager  to  fight  in  a  foreign  land  for  a  sovereign  whom 
they  would  have  despised  and  resisted  in  their  own . 

And  there  is  the  queen,  the  beautiful  and  graceful 
queen,  more  warlike  than  her  spouse,  her  Austrian  lip 
curling,  the  nostril  of  her  eagle-nose  dilating ;  there  is 
the  beautiful  and  graceful  Marie  Antoinette,  ready  to 
stake  the  crown  and  sceptre  of  her  child  on  the  chance 
of  battle.*     And  but  too  soon  after  we  shall  hear  the 


Page  359. 
14 


158  HISTORY. 

shouts  of  the  hot-blooded  populace,  and  the  heavy 
rolling  of  the  cannons  along  the  streets,  and  the  beating 
of  the  melancholy  drum  ;  and  lo  !  the  son  of  St.  Louis 
mounting  to  heaven.*  But  leaving  M.  Thiers  and  M. 
Mignet  to  the  high  reputation  which  their  talents  de- 
serve, I  come  to  M.  Guizot,  formerly  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  now  Minister  of  Instruction,  and  once  Pro- 
fessor of  History.  M.  Guizot,  full  of  deep  and  lofty 
thoughts,  and  skilful  in  their  combination,  of  a  medi- 
tative rather  than  an  active  mind,  is  by  nature  less  of 
a  painter  than  a  philosopher,  but  the  popular  taste  per- 
vades his  own.  He  would  be  as  an  artist  what  he 
is  not  as  a  man,  and  gives  at  least  its  full  value  to  the 
life  and  the  colouring  which  constitutes  the  charm 
of  his  countrymen  and  contemporaries.  *'  Mr.  Brodie," 
he  says  (in  speaking  of  our  writer  on  the  English 
revolution),  "  studies  and  does  not  see — discusses,  and 
does  not  paint — admires  the  popular  party  without 
bringing  it  on  the  stage ;  his  work  is  a  learned  and 
useful  dissertation:  mais  pas  une  histoire  morale  et 
vivante.  So  Sismondi  complains  of  the  little  interest 
that  the  old  histories  of  France,  notwithstanding  their 
learning,  excited ;  and  in  illustrating  his  own  history 
by  romances,  shows  why  he  supposed  his  predecessors 
to  be  neglected. 

M.  de  Chateaubriand,  whom  I  have  had  different 
occasions  to  quote  in  this  chapter,  and  with  whose  opi- 
nions in  criticism  and  in  politics  I  very  seldom  agree, 
has  nevertheless  said,  I  think,  every  thing  which  can, 
and  which  ought  to  be  said  of  the  two  styles  of  his- 
tory— the  philosophic  history  of  the  past  century  in 
France,  the  pictorial  history  of  the  present.  Eminent 
as  an  artist  himself,  eminent  for  seizing  and  painting 
the  costume  of  each  particular  time,  and  bringing  be- 
fore our  eyes,  as  no  other  writer  has  done,  the  feudal 
customs,  and  stately  and  chivalric  manners  of  a  sturdier 
time,  he  has  armed  the  critic  as  it  were  against  his 
own  excellence,  and  insisted  on  the  imperfectness  of  a 

*  "  Fils  de  St.  Louis,"  said  the  priest  officiating,  *'  montez  au  del." 


HISTORY.  159 

history  which  does  not  mingle  thought  and  philosophy 
with  ardour  and  description. 

"  La  pensee  philosophique,"  says  he,  *'  employee 
avec  sobriete  n'est-elle  pas  necessaire  pour  donner  a 
I'histoire  sa  gravite,  pour  lui  faire  prononcer  les  arrets 
qui  sont  du  ressort  de  son  dernier  et  supreme  tribunal  ? 
Au  degre  de  civihzation  ou  nous  sommes  arrives  I'his- 
toire de  Vespece  peut-elle  disparaitre  enti^rement  de 
I'histoire  de  Vindividu.  Les  verites,  eternelles  bases 
de  la  societe  humaine,  doivent-elles  se  perdre  dans  des 
tableaux  qui  ne  representent  que  des  mceurs  privees." 
— "  On  the  other  hand,"  he  continues,  "  history  as  a 
work  is  not  a  work  of  philosophy — it  is  a  picture.  We 
must  join  to  our  narrative  the  representation  of  the  ob- 
jects of  which  we  speak,  i.  c.  we  must  design  and 
paint.  We  must  give  to  our  personages  the  language, 
the  sentiments  of  their  time,  and  not  regard  them 
through  the  medium  of  our  own  opinions  and  ideas,  a 
fault  which  has  been  the  principal  cause  of  those  dis- 
tortions of  facts  which  have  disfigured  history." — "  Si 
prenant  pour  regie  ce  que  nous  croyons  de  la  liberte, 
de  I'egalite  de  la  religion,  de  tous  les  principes  poli- 
tiques,  nous  appliquons  cette  regie  a  I'ancien  ordre  de 
choses  nous  fausons  la  verite  ;  nous  exigeons  des 
hommes  vivant  dans  cet  ordre  de  choses  ce  dont  ils 
n'avaient  pas  I'idee.  Rien  n'etait  si  mal  que  nous  le 
pensons  :  le  pretre,  le  noble,  le  bourgeois,  le  vassal, 
avaient  d'autres  notions  du  juste  et  de  I'injuste  que  les 
notres ;  c'etait  un  autre  monde,  un  monde  sans  doute 
moins  rapproche  des  principes  generaux  naturels  que 
le  monde  present,  mais  qui  ne  manquait  ni  de  grandeur 
ni  de  force,  temoin  ses  actes  et  sa  duree."  Nothing, 
I  think,  can  be  more  true,  more  just  than  the  ideas 
which  are  here  expressed,  or  than  the  principles  which 
are  here  laid  down. 

The  historian,  to  be  perfect,  should  show  at  once 
the  peculiarities  and  costume  of  each  separate  epoch, 
and  the  common  feelings  and  the  common  passions  of 
all  epochs.  He  should  paint  the  man  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  man  of  the  nineteenth,  he  should  know 


160  HISTORY. 

that  each  were  men  under  different  circumstances,  but 
possessing  similar  propensities  ;  he  should  show  what 
is  nature,  what  is  her  costume — her  costume  that  ever 
varies — her  naked  figure,  which  is  always  the  same. 
My  object,  however,  is  not  to  write  a  general  criticism 
upon  history,  nor  even  a  general  criticism  upon  the 
present  historians  of  France,  for  I  find  that  I  have  al- 
ready outstepped  my  limits,  and  that  I  have  said  no- 
thing of  M.  Girardin,  nothing  of  M.  Michelet,^  nothing 
of  M.  St.  Aulaire,  and  his  interesting  picture  of  a  time 
so  interesting  in  the  annals  of  France,  so  replete  with 
the  grace  and  the  energy  of  the  French  character,  so 
remarkable  for  uniting  the  chivalry  of  an  age  gone  by 
with  the  grace  of  an  age  advancing.  My  object  has 
simply  been  to  show  that  history  in  France  is  in  a 
new  school — that  the  modern  French  historian  follows 
the  example  of  the  great  old  French  novelist  and 
comedian — and  like  Le  Sage  and  Moliere,  attempts 
rather  to  paint  than  to  explain.  Why  is  this  ?  Authors, 
since  authors  have  mixed  with  mankind,  have  been 
modelled  more  or  less  by  their  public.  The  historian's 
public  in  the  eighteenth  century  was,  as  I  have  said, 
a  public  of  would-be  philosophers  and  agreeable  fine 
gentlemen  ;  and  the  historian  went  trippingly  along, 
now  lecturing  the  one  class,  now  chatting  with  the 
other.  The  historical  style  of  the  nineteenth  century 
is  different  from  the  historical  style  of  the  eighteenth ; 
but  the  historian's  manner  has  not  changed  more  than 
his  readers  have  changed.  He  was  formerly  read  by 
a  clique — he  is  now  read  by  a  country. 

It  is  not  only  that  more  men  read  now  than  they 
used  to  do — this  has  not  increased  the  number  of  those 
who  disturb  the  dusty  volumes  in  the  royal  library 
that  treat  of  astrology  and  magic — it  is  not  only  that 
more  men  read  than  they  used  to  do,  but  that  more 
men  read  history — that  more  men  naturally  feel  an  in- 
terest in  historical  composition. 

*  I  ought  also,  in  that  case,  to  have  mentioned  the  very  interesting 
narrative  of  Charles  Edward,  by  M.  A.  Rihot,  an  author  who  is  the 
more  deserving  of  praise  from  an  EngUsh  critic  as  being  the  first 
French  critic  who  introduced  modern  English  literature  into  France. 


HISTORY.  161 

History  is  in  fact  not  interesting  far  beyond  the 
pale  of  those  whose  actions  make  history,  and  whose 
fortunes  are  affected  by  it.  History  would  not  be 
widely  interesting  in  a  country  where  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  were  slaves  and  mendicants,  without  hon- 
ours to  gain  or  property  to  lose.  History  would  be 
widely  interesting  in  a  country  where  the  great  bulk 
of  the  people  were  proprietors,  and  where  there  was 
no  post  in  the  state  which  every  citizen  might  not  rea- 
sonably hope  to  obtain.  In  the  one  case  it  is  an  idle 
speculation  to  be  studied  from  curiosity ;  in  tlie  other 
it  is  a  practical  lesson  to  be  looked  to  for  examples. 
With  the  general  diffusion  of  honours,  of  employments, 
and  more  especially  with  the  general  diffusion  of  prop- 
erty, on  which  the  diffusion  of  honours  and  employ- 
ments mainly  depends,  has  been  diffused  the  interest 
of  history. 

The  small  herd  of  encyclopaedists  and  courtiers, 
who  once  listened  to  the  historian,  are  now  cut  up,  as 
it  were,  into  an  immense  crowd  of  journalists,  shop- 
keepers, soldiers,  and  mechanics. 

This  division  and  diffusion  of  property,  bringing  up 
a  fresh  class  of  feelings  upon  the  surface  of  France — 
inverting  the  usual  order  of  events — creating  a  new 
society  when  we  might  have  been  looking  to  the  ma- 
ture caducity  of  an  old  one — turning  an  aristocracy  of 
readers  into  a  democracy  of  readers — has  made  the 
historian  a  popular  orator  where  he  was  formerly  a 
wit  and  a  metaphysician.  Addressing  a  more  numer- 
ous, a  more  impassioned,  a  less  reasoning  class  of 
readers  than  his  predecessor,  he  has  assumed  a  more 
vehement,  a  more  impassioned,  a  more  powerful  style 
of  writing. 

14* 


16d  DRAMA. 


DRAMA. 

Have  spoken  of  History — Speak  of  the  Drama — But  one  step  from 
Racine  to  Victor  Hugo  and  M.  A.  Dumas—"  Hemani" — Proceed 
to  "  Lucrece  Borgia." 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  history,  that  branch  of  French  lit- 
erature the  least  known  to  us,  and  in  which  the  French 
of  the  modern  day  have  most  succeeded.  I  would  now 
speak  of  the  drama,  that  branch  of  French  literature 
which  we  have  most  criticised,  and  in  which  the  later 
successes  of  the  French  have  been  most  disputed. 

There  are  but  two  epochs  in  the  French  drama. 
Louis  XIV.  was  on  the  throne,  and  in  the  declining 
shadow  of  one  man*  you  yet  saw  the  feudal  vigour  of 
the  Fronde,  and  in  the  rising  genius  of  another!  you 
caught  the  first  colouring  of  that  royal  pomp,  of  that 
Augustan  majesty  which  reigns  in  the  verse  of  Virgil 
and  the  buildings  of  Versailles.  And  all  things  were 
then  stamped  w'^h  lue  great  kingly  seal.  The  orator 
was  in  the  chair  what  the  writer  was  on  the  stage. 
This  was  a  great  period  of  the  human  mind,  and  since 
this  period  to  our  own,  tragedy  has  taken  but  one  giant 
stride.  The  genius  which  governed  the  theatre  stood 
unappalled  when  the  genius  which  had  founded  the 
throne  lay  prostrate.  The  reign  of  Robespierre  did 
not  disturb  the  rule  of  Racine.  The  republican  Che- 
nier,  erect  and  firm  before  the  tyranny  of  Bonaparte, 
bowed  before  the  tyranny  of  the  academy ;  the  trans- 
lations of  Ducis  were  a  homage  to  the  genius  of  Shak- 
speare,  but  no  change  in  the  dramatic  art. 

In  M.  Delavigne  you  see  the  old  school  modernized, 
but  it  is  the  old  school.     I  pass  by  M.  de  Vigny,J  who 

*  Comeille.  t  Racine. 

+More  known  for  his  very  remarkable  romance,  "  Cinq  Mars," 
and  the  publication  of  Stello. 


DRAMA  163 

has  written  La  Marechale  cTAncre  ;*  I  pass  by  M.  Sou- 
lier, who  has  written  Clotilde  ;t  I  pass  by  the  follow- 
ers to  arrive  at  the  chiefs  of  the  new  drama,  M.  V. 
HugoJ  and  M.  A.  Dumas,§  two  young  men — two  rivals, 

*  The  plot  of  "  La  Marechale  d'Ancre,"  a  title  taken  from  the  well 
known  favourite  of  Mary  de  Medicis,  turns  upon  a  passion  which 
this  lady  smothers  for  a  Corsican  adventurer,  the  bitter  enemy  of 
Concini,  her  husband ;  the  love  of  Concini  for  this  Corsican's  wife, 
whose  name  he  is  ignorant  of;  and  the  divided  feelings  of  the  Corsi- 
can himself,  who  at  once  hates  and  pursues  Concini,  and  loves  and 
relents  when  he  thinks  of  Concini's  wife.  Another  passion  also 
works  in  the  drama — the  jealousy  of  the  Corsican's  wife,  who  finds 
out  that  her  husband  is  in  love  with  the  marechale,  and  appears  in 
consequence  as  evidence  against  her  on  her  trial  for  sorcery  and 
witchcraft.  This  play,  which  falsifies  history  in  making  its  heroine, 
the  marechale,  beautiful  and  amiable,  which  is  just  what  she  was  not, 
is  written  nevertheless  with  great  spirit,  and  contains  some  very  elo- 
quent passages  and  powerful  situations. 

t  This  is  the  subject  of  "  Clotilde :"  Christian,  an  adventurer,  is 
to  marry  her  on  such  a  day,  and  receive  with  her  a  large  fortune ; 
but  in  order  to  do  this  he  must  show  himself  to  be  the  possessor  of  a 
certain  sum.  To  obtain  this  sum,  he  murders  the  Jew  who  would 
not  lend  it  him.  Clotilde,  however,  who  is  passionately  attached  to 
him,  quits  her  father's  house  at  the  very  time  he  commits  tins  mur- 
der, in  order  to  live  with  him  even  as  his  mistress ;  this  she  rather 
inexplicably  continues  to  do  after  the  murder  has  been  committed. 
At  last  Christian,  who  is  about  as  great  a  rascal  as  one  could  desire  to 
meet,  determines  on  marrying  an  intriguante  who  can  make  him  sec- 
retary of  embassy,  and  quitting  Clotilde.  Clotilde,  in  despair  at  tliis 
treachery,  and  acquainted  by  his  dreams  with  the  crime  of  Christian, 
informs  against  him.  He  is  condemned  t'^ '"^  ";nth.  She  is  in  despair, 
and  forces  her  way  into  the  prison  to  see' hmi.'"  "What  have  you 
brought  me?"  says  Christian.  "Poison,"  says  Clotilde;  and  they 
poison  themselves  together.  The  play  is  full  of  absurdities,  but 
powerfully  written. 

X  The  father  of  M.  Victor  Hugo  was  a  general.  One  of  his  rela- 
tions of  the  same  name  still  holds  the  same  rank,  and  commands  in 
one  of  the  departments.  In  his  early  days  his  opinions  were  directly 
opposed  to  those  he  has  since  and  now  professes.  On  leaving  col 
lege,  he  and  his  brother  pubhshed  a  small  newspaper  of  the  same 
opinions  as  the  "  Censor  ;"  it  existed  but  a  very  short  time.  M.  V. 
Hugo  next  published  a  novel  which  he  had  written  while  at  college ; 
afterward  a  variety  of  odes  appeared,  on  the  Virgins  of  Verdun,  on 
La  Vendee,  on  the  death  of  Louis  XVIL,  on  the  death  of  the  Due 
de  Berry,  on  the  baptism  of  the  Due  de  Bordeaux,  and  on  the  death 
of  Louis  XVIIL,  and  also  one  on  Napoleon. 

M.  Victor  Hugo  received  a  pension  from  Louis  XVIIT.  Charles 
X.  wished  to  increase  this  pension ;  M.  V.  Hugo,  in  a  letter  which  I 
have  seen,  honourably  refused  this  addition. 

(j  M.  Dumas,  the  son  of  a  general  also,  has  written  his  own  life, 
as  a  portrait  taken  from  the  gallery  of  "  young  France."  This  life  is 
too  interesting  to  be  crowded  into  a  note,  and  I  hope  to  have  another 
opportunity  of  alluding  to  it.    Coming  up  to  Paris  to  make  his  for 


164  DRAMA. 

each  has  his  enthusiastic  partisans,  but  their  talents 
are  entirely  different ;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  these 
writers,  or  their  friends,  should  suppose  that  the  suc- 
cess of  one  is  incompatible  with  the  reputation  of  the 
other.  The  first  drama  which  M.  Victor  Hugo  brought 
on  the  stage  (for  he  had  written  "  Cromwell,"  a  clever 
but  cold  performance  some  years  before)  was  "  Her- 
nani  ;"*  and  as  it  has  been  already  translated,  it  would 
be  useless  to  enter  here  into  any  lengthened  criticism 
upon  its  merits.  Among  M.  V.  Hugo's  plays,  how- 
ever, Hernani  stands  alone.  No  other  of  his  dramas 
has  the  same  tenderness,  the  same  gentleness,  the 
same  grace,  the  same  nature ;  for  Hernani  was  written 
by  M.  Hugo  before  he  laid  down  for  himself  the  extra- 
ordinary rules  which  I  shall  presently  have  to  speak  of. 
In  Hernani,  then,  you  find  the  characters  of  Spain — 
truly  Spanish — in  Hernani  you  find  the  old  Spaniard, 
jealous  and  vindictive,  and  the  young  Spanish  noble, 
high-minded,  adventurous  and  romantic,  and  the  Span- 
ish maiden  ardent,  fond,  with  all  the  love  and  all  the 
enthusiasm  which  the  warm  sun  of  her  country  begets, 
and  which  the  dark  convent,  and  the  keen-eyed  du- 
enna have  been  invented  to  check. 

tune,  the  Chamber  and  the  Theatre  before  him  on  one  side,  the 
Morgue  and  the  Seine  on  the  other,  M.  Dumas  was  placed,  through 
the  interest  of  General  Foy,  in  one  of  the  bureaux  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  where  he  improved  his  education,  and  first  received  his  dra- 
matic inspirations. 

More  fortunate  than  many  of  his  predecessors,  his  career  was  from 
the  commencement  a  series  of  theatrical  triumphs,  and  he  almost 
immediately  quitted  the  desk  for  the  stage. 

*  The  play  turns  on  the  love  of  Dona  Sol,  a  young  Spanish  lady, 
for  Hernani,  first  known  to  her  as  a  bandit,  but  who  afterward  proves 
to  be  a  grandee  of  Spain.  Dona  Sol,  however,  is  also  beloved  by 
her  uncle,  Don  Gomez  de  Silva,  whom  she  was  originally  engaged  to 
marry.  Don  Gomez  saves  Hernani,  in  the  early  part  of  his  career, 
from  the  vengeance  of  Charles  V.,  and  Hernani  promises  the  old 
Spanish  noble  to  give  him  the  life  he  has  saved  whenever  he  shall 
ask  for  it.  At  the  end  of  the  play  Charles  pardons  Hernani,  on  dis- 
covering his  birth,  and  gives  him  Dona  Sol  in  marriage.  It  is  on  the 
wedding-night  of  the  young  couple  that  the  old  uncle  comes  and 
claims  Hernani's  promise.  This  last  scene  is  the  best  part  of  the 
play,  which  finishes  by  Hernani  and  his  bride  both  taking  the  poison 
that  Don  Gomez  brings,  and  the  lovers  die  in  each  other's  arms. 
Charles  V.  character,  particularly  in  his  wild  and  early  days,  is  painted 
with  a  very  masterly  hand. 


DRAMA  165 

Better  go  seek  to  rob  the  fiercest  tigress 
Of  her  fond  young — than  rob  me  of  my  love. 
Oh !  know  you  Dona  Sol,  and  what  she  is? 
Long  time,  m  pity  for  thy  sicklied  age 
And  sixty  years — I  was  all  tenderness — 
All  innocence,  the  soft  and  timid  maiden. 
But  see  you  now  this  eye?  it  weeps  with  rage  ; 
And  see  you  not  this  poniard?  foolish  old  man ! 
Kot  fear  the  steel,  when  menaced  by  the  eye? 
Don  Ruy  beware !  1  am  thy  blood,  my  uncle ! 
Ay,  list  thee  well ! — were  1  thy  only  daughter, 
'Twere  ill  with  thee  wert  thou  to  harm  my  husband. 

And  yet  forgive  me ! 

Pity  me !  Pardon  me !  See,  I  am  at  your  feet ! 
Pity,  alas !  my  lord !  I'm  but  a  woman — 
Pm  weak,  my  force  miscarries  in  my  soul. 
I  feel  my  feebleness,  I  fall  before  you — 
I  beg  your  pity ! — and  you  know,  my  lord — 
You  know  we  Spanish  women  have  a  grief 
That  measures  not  its  wording. 

Such  is  the  heroine  of  the  piece — such  is  the  pas- 
sion which  she  feels — a  passion  for  the  chosen  of  her 
heart — for  her  husband  whom  she  marries  when  a  no- 
ble— but  whom  she  loved,  whom  she  selected,  whom 
she  would  have  followed  when  a  bandit.  With  such 
a  heroine,  and  with  such  a  passion,  we  can  sympa- 
thize. 

But  I  will  preface  what  I  shall  have  to  say  of  M. 
V.  Hugo,  and  the  observations  I  shall  subsequently 
venture  to  submit  on  the  present  state  of  the  French 
drama,  by  translating  certain  parts  of  one  of  the  most 
popular  and  recent  pieces  that  this  author  has  brought 
upon  the  stage. 
26 


106  DRAMA. 


LUCRECE  BORGIA. 


LucRECE  Borgia  is  only  in  three  acts.  It  begins 
at  Venice.  You  are  at  Venice — it  is  Venice's  gay 
time,  and  you  see  her  carnival,  her  masked  revels — 
and  there,  on  the  terrace  of  the  Barbarigo  palace,  are 
some  young  nobles — and  at  the  bottom  of  this  terrace 
flovirs  the  canal  De  la  Zueca,  on  which,  through  the 
"  darkness  visible"  of  a  Venetian  night,  you  see  pass 
the  gondola,  and  the  masquerade,  and  the  musicians. 

Twenty  years  have  gone  by  since  the  death  of  Jean 
Borgia.  The  young  nobles  speak  of  that  awful  assas- 
sination, and  of  the  body  plunged  into  the  Tiber,  and 
perceived  by  a  boatman,  involuntary  witness  of  the 
crime — and  Comte  de  Belverana,  supposed  to  be  a 
Spanish  seigneur,  joins  in  the  conversation,  and  seems 
indeed,  to  the  surprise  of  the  Venetians,  better  ac- 
quainted than  any  of  them  with  the  history  of  Italy. 
One  young  cavalier  alone  is  inattentive,  and  even 
sleeps,  while  the  rest  pass  their  conjectures  on  the 
fate  of  the  young  boy,  son  of  Lucrece  Borgia,  by  Jean 
Borgia — the  Jean  Borgia  who  had  perished  in  the 
manner  described — victim,  as  it  was  said,  of  the  wrath 
and  jealousy  of  his  brother  and  his  rival,  Caesar. 

At  last  the  Comte  Belverana  is  left  alone  upon  the 
stage  with  the  yomig  man  who  is  still  sleeping,  and 
whose  indifference  to  the  conversation  that  had  been 
going  on  has  already  been  accounted  for  by  his  com- 
panions on  the  ground  that,  ignorant  alike  of  his  father 
and  mother,  he  could  not  feel  an  interest  in  those 


DRAMA.  167 

family  stories  which  then  agitated  Italy,  and  had  more 
or  less  affected  every  one  of  themselves. 

A  masked  lady  enters  and  addresses  the  Spaniard 
by  the  name  of  "  Gubetta,"  He  reminds  her  of  his 
disguise,  and  warns  her  also  to  be  cautious 

"  If  they  don't  know  me,"  says  the  lady,  "  caution 
is  of  little  consequence — if  they  do,  it  is  they  who 
have  cause  to  fear."  It  is  easy  to  see  that  Gubetta, 
or  Comte  Belverana,  is  an  Italian  bravo  in  the  service 
of  this  dame,  who  now  says  that  for  the  future  she 
means  to  be  all  virtue  and  clemency,  and  that  her  only 
desire  is  to  obtain  the  affections  of  the  young  man  who 
is  sleeping.  Gubetta  shrugs  up  his  shoulders  at 
what  he  seems  to  consider  a  very  startling  change  of 
disposition,  and  thinks  it  better,  under  these  circum- 
stances, to  leave  his  mistress  and  the  sleeper  together. 
Lucr^ce,  for  the  lady  is  no  other,  takes  off  her  mask, 
and  kisses  the  forehead  of  the  youth ;  but  in  doing  so 
she  has  been  seen  by  two  strangers  who  had  been 
watching  her — one  her  husband,*  the  other  a  gentle- 
man attached  to  his  service,  and  of  the  same  honour- 
able profession  as  Gubetta.  Gennaro  (this  is  the  name 
of  the  personage  hitherto  so  quiescent)  now  awakes. 
He  tells  Lucrece  that  he  is  a  soldier  of  fortune,  an  or- 
phan ignorant  of  his  parents,  and  that  he  only  lives  to 
discover  his  mother,  and  to  make  himself  worthy  of  her. 

"  I  mean  my  sword  to  be  pure  and  holy  as  of  an 
emperor.  I've  been  offered  any  thing  to  enter  the  ser- 
vice of  that  infamous  Lucrece.     I  refused." 

"Gennaro!  Gennaro!"  says  the  lady,  "you  should 
pity  the  wicked ;  you  know  not  their  hearts." 

It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  young  nobles,  with 
whose  conversation  the  play  commenced,  come  again 
on  the  scene. 

♦  The  Duke  of  Ferrara. 


168  DRAMA. 

ACT  I. 

SCENE  V. 

The  same.  Maffio  Orsini,  Jeppo  Liveretto,  Ascanio 
Petrucci,  Oloferno  Vitellozzo,  Don  Apostolo  Gazella. 
Nobles,  ladies,  pages  carrying  torches. 

Maffio  (a  torch  in  his  hand). 
Gennaro,  dost  thou  wish  to  know  the  woman  to  whom 
thou  art  talking  love  1 

Dona  Lucrece  {aside.,  under  her  mask). 
Just  Heaven ! 

Gennaro. 
You  are  my  friends — but  I  swear  before  God,  that 
whoever  touches  the  mask  of  this  lady  is  a  bold  fellow ! 
— The  mask  of  a  woman  is  as  sacred  as  the  face  of  a 
man. 

Maffio. 
But  first  the  woman  must  be  a  woman,  Gennaro ;  not 
that  we  wish  to  insult  this  lady — we  only  wish  to  tell 
her  our  names.  (Making  a  step  towards  Dona  Lucrece.) 
Madam,  I  am  Maffio  Orsini,  brother  to  the  Duke  of  Gra- 
vina,whom  your  bravoes  strangled  during  the  night  while 
he  was  sleeping. 

Jeppo. 
Madam,  I  am  Jeppo  Liveretto,  nephew  of  Liveretto 
Vitelli,  poniarded  by  your  orders  in  the  caves  of  the 
Vatican. 

Ascanio. 
Madam,  I  am  Ascanio  Petrucci,  cousin  of  Pandolfo 
Petrucci,  Lord  of  Sienna,  whom  you  had  assassinated  in 
order  to  rob  him  more  easily  of  his  town. 

Oloferno. 
Madam,  my  name  is  Oloferno  Vitellozzo,  nephew  of 
Jago  d'Appiani,  whom  you  had  poisoned  at  a  f^te,  after 
having  treacherously  despoiled  him  of  his  good  and 
lordly  citadel  of  Piombino. 


DRAMA.  169 

Don  Apostolo. 
Madam,  you  had  Don  Francisco  Gazella  put  to  death 
upon  the  scaffold.  Don  Francisco  Gazella  was  mater- 
nal uncle  to  Don  Alphonso  of  Aragon,  your  third  hus- 
band, killed  by  your  order  on  the  stairs  of  St.  Peter. 
I  am  Don  Apostolo  Gazella,  cousin  of  the  one  and  son 
of  the  other. 

Dona  Lucrece. 
OGod! 

Gennaro. 
Who  is  this  woman  ? 

Maffio. 

And  now  that  we  have  told  you  our  names,  do  you 
wish  that  we  should  tell  you  yours  ? 

Dona  Lucrece. 
No — no,  my  lords — not  before  him ! 

Maffio  {taking  off  her  mask). 
Take  off  your  mask,  madam,  so  that  one  may  see 
whether  you  can  blush. 

Don  Apostolo. 
That  woman,  Gennaro,  to  whom  you  were  whispering 
love,  is  a  murderess  and  an  adultress. 

Jeppo. 
Incestuous  in  every  degree — incestuous  with  her  two 
brothers,  one  of  whom  slew  the  other  for  her  love 

Dona  Lucrece. 
Pity! 

Ascanio. 
Incestuous  with  her  father,  who  is  pope. 

Oloferno. 
A  monster  who  would  be  incestuous  with  her  children, 
if  children  she  had ;  but  Heaven  refuses  issue  to  such 
monsters. 

Dona  Lucrece. 
Enough!  enough! 

Maffio. 
Woul''  vou  know  her  name,  Gennaro  ? 


170  DR..MA. 

Dona  Lucrecc 
Pity — pity,  my  lords ! 

Maffio. 
Gennaro,  would'st  thou  know  her  name  ? 
LucRECE  {dragging  herself  to  the  knees  of  Gennaro^. 
Listen  not,  my  Gennaro ! 

Maffio  {stretching  out  his  arm). 
It's  Lucrece  Borgia ! 

Gennaro  {pushing  her  hack). 
Oh! 

{She  falls,  having  fainted  at  his  feet.) 

Soon  after  this,  Maffio,  Jeppo,  Ascanio,  Oloferno,  Don 
Apostolo,  are  sent  by  Venice  on  a  special  embassy  to 
Ferrara,  where  Lucrece  Borgia  holds  her  court,  and 
Gennaro  accompanies  them,  being  the  sworn  brother 
in  arms  of  Maffio  d'Orsini. 

The  passions  in  action  are — the  affection  of  Lu- 
crece for  Gennaro — the  jealous  indignation  of  the  Due 
de  Ferrara  against  Gennaro,  whom  he  supposes,  from 
what  he  saw  at  the  mask  of  Venice,  to  be  a  lover — 
and  the  vengeance  of  Lucrece,  who  has  determined  to 
punish  the  young  Venetian  nobles  who  had  insulted  her. 

Gennaro  lays  himself  open  to  the  due's  plans  by  the 
historical  outrage  of  erasing  the  B  from  the  front  of  the 
ducal  palace,  which  left  "  orgia"  engraved  upon  that 
part  which  Lucrece  inhabited. 

The  first  act  ends  with  a  meeting  between  the  two 
emissaries  of  the  due  and  the  duchesse  ;  the  one  seek- 
ing, as  he  supposes,  a  lover  for  Lucrece,  the  other  a 
victim  for  the  due.  In  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  the 
two  missions,  the  bravoes  decide  by  tossing  up,  whether 
Gennaro  shall  be  adored  or  murdered.  The  duke's 
bravo  gains. 

The  second  act  contains  a  most  spirited  scene  be- 
tween Lucrece  Borgia  and  her  husband.  Lucrece 
having  first  passionately  demanded  vengeance  on  the 
person  who  had  outraged  her  palace,  as  passionately 


DRAMA.  171 

demands  the  offender's  pardon  on  discovering  the  in- 
sult to  have  been  offered  by  the  young  Gennaro.  The 
due,  ho'Vvever,  more  and  more  confirmed  in  his  jeal- 
ousy, persists  in  his  determination  that  death  should 
be  inflicted  on  the  culprit,  and  only  allows  his  wife  to 
choose  whether  her  supposed  paramour  should  be 
stabbed  or  poisoned ;  on  Lucrece  preferring  the  latter, 
the  famous  Borgia  poison  is  served  to  Gennaro,  who, 
however,  believes  himself  pardoned — and  the  due  then, 
quitting  the  room,  tells  his  wife  that  he  gives  her  her 
lover's  last  quarter  of  an  hour.  Lucrece,  on  finding 
herself  alone  with  Gennaro,  offers  him  an  antidote  for 
the  poison  he  has  taken — and  there  is  a  fine  moment 
where  he  doubts  whether  the  Due  de  Ferrara  has  really 
poisoned  him,  or  whether  it  is  Lucrece  herself  who 
wishes  to  do  so.  Finally,  however,  he  swallows  the 
antidote,  and  is  warned  by  Lucrece  to  quit  Ferrara 
without  delay.  But  I  pass  by  the  second  act,  which, 
however,  is  fully  worthy  of  the  reader's  attention,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  the  third  act,  which  closes  the  play, 
that  opened  with  the  insult  given  to  Dona  Lucrece,  at 
the  masked  ball  at  Venice,  by  a  vengeance  she  takes 
for  that  insult  at  a  supper  at  Ferrara.  The  five  young 
Venetian  nobleman  have  been  invited  by  Lucrece's 
order  to  an  entertainment  at  the  Negroni  Palace,  and 
Gennaro,  whom  he  supposes  distant  from  Ferrara,  ac- 
companies them  thither. 


ACT  III. 

Oloferno  {his  glass  in  his  hand). 
What  wine  like  that  of  Xeres  1 — Xeres  of  Frontera  is 
a  city  of  Paradise ! 

•VIaffio  {his  glass  in  his  hand). 
The  wine  that  we  drink,  Jeppo,  is  better  than  any  of 
your  stories. 

ASCANIO. 

Jeppo  has  the  misfortune  to  be  a  great  teller  of  tales 
when  he  has  drunk  a  little. 

H2 


172  DRAMA. 

Don  Apostolo. 
The  other  day  it  was  at  Venice  at  his  serene  high- 
ness's  the  Doge  Barbarigo's :  to-day  it  is  at  Ferrara,  at 
the  divine  Princess  Negroni's. 

Jeppo. 

The  other  day  it  was  a  mournful  tale ;  to-day  it's  a 
merry  one. 

Maffio. 

A  merry  tale,  Jeppo! — How  happened  it  that  Don 
Sihceo,  a  fine  cavalier  not  more  than  thirty,  after  having 
gambled  away  his  patrimony,  married  that  rich  Mar- 
quesa  Calpurnia,  who  has  counted  forty-eight  springs, 
to  say  the  least  of  it  ?  By  the  body  of  Bacchus,  do  you 
call  that  a  gay  story  1 

GUBETTA. 

It's  sad  and  trite — a  man  ruined  who  marries  a  woman 
in  ruins  ;  one  sees  it  every  day. 

{He  turns  to  the  table.     Some  get  up  and  come  to  the 
front  of  the  scene  during  the  continuance  of  the  orgie.) 

The  Princess  Negroni  {to  Maffio,  pointing  to  Gennaro.) 
You  seem,  D'Orsini,  to  have  but  a  melancholy  friend 
there. 

Maffio. 
He  is  always  so,  madam.  You  must  pardon  me  for 
having  brought  him  without  an  invitation;  he  is  my 
brother  in  arms — he  saved  my  life  in  an  assault  at  Rimini ; 
I  received  a  thrust  intended  for  him  in  the  attack  of  the 
bridge  of  Vicenza:  we  never  quit  one  another.  A  gipsy 
predicted  we  should  die  the  same  day. 

The  Negroni  {smiling). 
Did  the  gipsy  say  that  it  was  to  be  in  the  night  or  the 
morning  T 

Maffio. 
He  said  that  it  should  be  in  the  morning. 

The  Negroni. 
Your  Bohemian  did  not  know  what  he  was  saying ; 
and  you  are  friends  with  that  young  man  1 — 

Maffio. 
As  much  as  one  man  can  be  with  another. 


DRAMA.  173 

The  Negroni. 
Well,  and  you  suffice  one  to  the  other :  you  are  happy. 

Maffio. 
Friendship  does  not  fill  all  the  heart,  madam. 

The  Negroni. 
My  God !  what  does  fill  all  the  heart  I 

Maffio. 
Love. 

The  Negroni. 
You  have  love  always  on  your  lips. 

Maffio. 
And  you,  madam,  have  love  in  your  eyes. 

The  Negroni.- 
You  are  very  singular. 

Maffio. 
You  are  very  beautiful ! 

{He  puts  his  arm  round  her  waist.) 

The  Negroni. 
Monsieur  Orsini!* 

Maffio. 
Give  me,  then,  one  kiss  upon  your  hand. 
The  Negroni. 
"  No.  {She  escapes.) 

GuBETTA  {approaching  Maffio.) 
Your  business  goes  on  well  with  the  princess. 

Maffio. 
She  always  says  "  No"  to  me. 

GuBETTA. 

But  in  a  woman's  mouth  "  No"  is  the  eldest  brother 
to  "Yes." 

Jeppo  {coming  up  io  Maffio). 
What  do  you  think  of  the  Princess  Negroni  ? 

*  The  reader  will  observe  that  it  is  not  my  fault  if  the  Count  Or- 
sini and  the  Princess  Negroni  behave  a  little  too  much  like  a  younj 
cantab  and  a  Dover  chambermaid. 
15* 


174  DRAMA. 

Maffio. 
She  is  adorable !    Between  ourselves,  she  begins  to 
work  upon  my  heart  most  furiously. 

Jeppo. 
And  her  supper  1 

Maffio. 
As  perfect  as  orgie  can  be  ! 

Jeppo. 
The  princess  is  a  widow. 

Maffio. 
One  sees  that  well  enough  by  her  gayety. 

Jeppo. 
I  hope  that  your  fears  of  the  supper  are  gone  by  this 
time  1 

Maffio. 
I !  how  then  1—1  was  stupid. 

Jeppo  {to  Gubetta.) 
Monsieur  de  Belverana,  you  would  hardly  think  that 
Maffio  was  afraid  of  supping  at  the  princess's  ^ 

Gubetta. 
Afraid  '.—why  1 

Jeppo. 
Because  the  palace  Negroni,  forsooth,  joins  the  palace 
Borgia ! 

Gubetta. 
To  the  devil  with  the  Borgia,  and  let's  drink ! 

Jeppo  {in  a  ivhisper  to  Maffio). 
What  I  like  in  this  Belverana  is,  his  thorough  hatred 
of  the  Borgias. 

Maffio  {in  a  whisper). 
True,  he  never  misses  an  occasion  of  sending  them  to 
the  devil  with  a  most  particular  grace.    Nevertheless, 
my  dear  Jeppo — 

Jeppo. 
Well. 


DRAMA.  176 

Maffio. 
I  have  watched  this  pretended  Spaniard  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  supper ;  he  has  drank  nothing  but  water. 

Jeppo. 
What !  at  your  suspicion  again,  my  good  friend  Maf- 
fio !    The  effect  of  your  wine  is  strangely  monotonous  ! 

Maffio. 

Perhaps  so ;  I  am  stupid. 
GuBETTA  (retiring,  and  looking  at  Maffio  from  head  to  foot). 

Do  you  know,  Monsieur  Maffio,  that  you  are  built  to 
live  ninety  years,  and  that  you  are  just  like  my  grand- 
father, who  did  live  to  those  years,  and  was  called,  like 
myself,  Gil-Basilio-Fernen-Fernan-Ireneo-Felipe-Fras- 
con  Frasquito  Comte  de  Belverana  ] 

Jeppo  (m  a  whisper  to  Maffio). 
I  hope  you  do  not  now  doubt  of  his  being  a  Spaniard 
— he  has  at  least  twenty  Christian  names !     What  a 
litany,  Monsieur  de  Belverana ! 

GuBETTA. 

Alas  !  our  parents  have  the  habit  of  giving  us  more 
names  at  our  baptism  than  crowns  at  our  marriage. 
But  what  are  they  laughing  at  down  there  1  (Aside.) — 
Those  women  must  have  some  pretext  to  get  away ; 
what's  to  be  done  1 

(He  returns  and  sits  down  to  table.) 

Oloferno  (drinking). 
By  Hercules,  I  never  passed  a  more  delicious  even- 
ing !    Ladies,  taste  this  wine  ;  it's  softer  than  the  wine 
of  tacryma  Christi,  more  generous  than  the  wine  of  Cy- 
prus !   Here,  this  is  the  wine  of  Syracuse,  my  seigneurs ! 

Gubetta.  (eating). 
Oloferno's  drunk,  it  seems. 

Oloferno. 
Ladies,  I  must  tell  you  some  verses  that  I  have  just 
made.    1  wish  I  were  more  of  a  poet  than  I  am,  in  order 
that  I  might  celebrate  such  admirable  women ! 


176  DRAMA. 

GUBETTA. 

And  I  wish  I  were  more  rich  than  1  am,  in  order  to 
present  my  friends  with  just  such  other  women.* 

Oloferno. 
Nothing  is  so  agreeable  as  to  sing  the  praise  of  a 
good  supper  and  a  beautiful  woman ! 

GuBETTA. 

Except  to  kiss  the  one  and  eat  the  other. 

Oloferno. 
Yes,  I  wish  I  were  a  poet ;  I  would  raise  myself  to 
heaven — I  wish  I  had  two  wings  !— 

GuBETTA. 

Of  a  pheasant  in  my  plate. 

Oloferno. 
At  all  events,  I'll  tell  you  my  sonnet. 

GuBETTA. 

As  I  dispense  the  dogs  from  biting  me,  the  pope  from 
blessing  me,  and  the  people  in  the  street  from  pelting  me. 

Oloferno. 
By  God's  head,  I  believe,  little  Spanish  gentleman, 
that  you  mean  to  insult  me  ! 

GuBETTA. 

I  don't  insult  you,  colossus  of  an  Italian ;  I  don't 
choose  to  listen  to  your  sonnet — nothing  more.  My 
throat  thirsts  more  after  the  Syracusan  wine  than  my 
ears  after  poetry. 

Oloferno. 

Your  ears,  you  Spanish  rascal — I'll  nail  them  to  your 
heels ! 

Gubetta. 

You  are  a  foolish  beast !  Fy !  did  one  ever  hear  of 
such  a  lout,  to  get  drunk  with  Syracusan  wine,  and  have 
the  air  of  being  sottish  with  beer ! 

Oloferno. 
I'll  cut  you  into  quarters,  that  will  I ! 

*  Rather  singular  language  in  a  princess's  palace,  and  addressed 
to  her  and  her  friends. 


DRAMA.  177 

GuBETTA  (still  carving  a  pheasant), 
I  won't  say  as  much  for  you ;  I  don't  carve  such  big 
fowls.    Ladies,  let  me  offer  you  some  pheasant, 

Oloferno  (seizing  a  knife). 
Pardieu !  I'll  cut  the  rascal's  belly  open,  were  he  more 
of  a  gentleman  than  the  emperor  himself ! 

The  Women  (rising  from  the  table.) 
Heavens !  they  are  going  to  fight ! 

The  Men, 
Come,  come,  Oloferno ! 

(They  disarm  Oloferno ^  who  wishes  to  rush  upon  Gu- 
betta.  While  they  are  doing  thisj  the  Women 
disappear.) 

Oloferno  (struggling). 
By  God's  body— 

Gubetta. 
Your  rhymes  are  so  rich  with  God,  my  dear  poet,  that 
you  have  put  these  ladies  to  flight.     You  are  a  terrible 
bungler ! 

Jeppo. 
It's  very  true :  where  the  devil  are  they  gone  to  ? 

Maffio. 
They  were  frightened :  "  steel  drawn,  woman  gone.'* 

ASCANIO. 

Bah !  they'll  come  back  again. 

Oloferno  (menacing  Gubetta). 
I'll  find  you  again  to-morrow,  my  little  devil  Bellive- 
dera ! 

Gubetta. 
To-morrow  as  much  as  you  please. 

(Oloferno  seats  himself  tottering  with  rage.    Gubetta 
bursts  out  laughing.) 
That  idiot !  to  send  away  the  prettiest  women  in  Fer- 
rara  with  a  knife  wrapped  up  in  a  sonnet !     To  quarrel 
about  rhymes ! — I  believe  indeed  he  has  wings.     It  is 
not  a  man,  it's  a  bird — it  perches ;  it  ought  to  sleep  on 
one  leg,  that  creature  Oloferno. 
H3 


178  DRAMA. 

Jeppo. 
There,  there,  gentlemen,  let's  have  peace— you'll  cut 
one  another's  throats  gallantly  to-morrow:  by  Jupiter! 
you'll  fight,  at  all  events,  like  gentlemen — with  swords, 
and  not  with  knives ! 

ASCANIO. 

Apropos !  what  have  we  done  with  our  swords  * 

Don  Apostolo. 
You  forget  that  they  were  taken  from  us  in  the  ante- 
chamber. 

GUBETTA. 

And  a  good  precaution  too,  or  we  should  have  been 
fighting  before  ladies,  a  vulgarity  that  would  bring 
blushes  into  the  cheek  of  a  Fleming  drunk  with  tobacco ! 

Gennaro. 
A  good  precaution,  in  sooth ! 
Maffio. 
Pardieu !  brother  Gennaro,  those  are  the  first  words 
that  have  passed  your  lips  since  the  beginning  of  the 
supper,  and  you  don't  drink  !     Are  you  thinking  of  Lu- 
crece  Borgia,  Gennaro  1  Decidedly  you  have  some  little 
love  affair  with  her — don't  say  "  No." 

Gennaro. 
Give  me  to  drink,  Maffio !  I  won't  abandon  my  friends 
at  the  table  any  more  than  I  would  in  the  battle. 
A  black  Page,  with  two  flagons  in  his  hand. 
My  lords,  the  wine  of  Cyprus  or  of  Syiracuse  1 

Maffio. 
Syracusan  wine,  that's  the  best. 

{The  black  Page  fills  all  the  glasses.) 

Jeppo. 
The  plague  seize  thee,  Oloferno !  are  those  ladies  not 
coming  back  again  1 — {He  goes  successively  to  the  two 
doors.) — The  doors  are  fastened  on  the  other  side,  gen- 
tlemen. 

Maffio. 

Now,  Jeppo,  don't  you  in  your  turn  be  frightened ; 
they  don't  wish  we  should  follow  them,  nothing  can  be 
more  simple  than  that. 


DRAMA.  17$ 

Gennaro. 

Let  us  drink,  gentlemen  ! 

{They  bring  their  glasses  together.) 

Maffio. 
To  thy  health,  Gennaro!  and  mayst  thou  soon  re- 
cover thy  mother ! 

Geiwaro. 
May  God  hear  thee ! 

{All  drink,  except  Gubetta^  who  throws  his  wine  over 
his  shoulder.) 

Maffio  {in  a  whisper  to  Jeppo). 
This  time,  at  all  events,  Jeppo,  I  saw  it  clearly. 

Jeppo  {whispering). 
What? 

Maffio. 
The  Spaniard  did  not  drink. 

Jeppo. 
Well,  what  then? 

Maffio. 
He  threw  his  wine  over  his  shoulder. 

Jeppo. 
He  is  drunk,  and  you  too. 

Maffio. 
It  is  just  possible. 

GUBETTA. 

Come,  a  song,  gentlemen !  I  am  going  to  sing  you  a 
song  worth  all  the  sonnets  of  the  Marquis  Oloferno.  I 
swear,  by  the  good  old  scull  of  my  father,  that  I  did  not 
make  the  song,  and  that  I  have  not  wit  enough  to  make 
two  rhymes  jingle  at  the  end  of  an  idea.  Here's  my 
song — it's  addressed  to  St.  Peter,  the  celebrated  porter  of 
Paradise,  and  it  has  for  its  subject  that  delicate  thought 
that  God's  heaven  belongs  to  the  drinkers. 

Jeppo  {to  Maffio,  whispering). 
He  is  more  than  drunk ;  the  fellow's  a  drunkard. 


All  {except  Gennaro). 
The  song !  the  song ! 


180  DRAMA. 

GuBETTA  (singing), 

St.  Peter,  St.  Peter,  ho  ! 
Your  gates  open  fling 
To  the  drinker,  who'll  bring 
A  stout  voice  to  sing 
Domino  !  Domino ! 
All  in  chorus  {except  Gennaro.) 
Gloria  Domino ! 
{They  clash  their  glasses  together,  and  laugh  loudly. 
All  of  a  sudden,  one  hears  distant  voices,  which 
sing  in  a  mournful  key.) 

Voice  without. 
Sanctum  et  terribile  nomen  ejus,  initium  sapientiae 
timor  Domini ! 

Jeppo  {laughing  still  loUder). 
Listen,  gentlemen ;  by  the  body  of  Bacchus,  while  we 
are  singing  "  to  drink,"  Echo  is  singing  "  to  pray !" 

All. 
Listen! 

Voice  without  {a  little  nearer). 

Nisi  Dominus  custodierit  civitatem,  frustra  vigilat  qui 
custodit  earn. 

{They  all  burst  out  laughing.) 

Maffio. 
It's  some  procession  passing. 

Gennaro. 
At  midnight ! — that's  a  little  late. 

Jeppo. 
Bah !    Go  on.  Monsieur  de  Belverana. 

Voice  without,  and  which  comes  nearer  and  nearer. 
Oculos  habent  et  non  videbunt,  nares  habent  et  non 
odorabunt,  aures  habent  et  non  audient. 

{All  laughing  louder  and  louder.) 

Jeppo. 
Trust  the  monks  for  bawling ! 


DRAMA.  181 

Maffio. 
Look,  Gennaro  ;  the  lamps  are  going  out  here — a  min- 
ute more,  and  we  shall  be  in  darkness. 

{The  lamps  get  pale,  as  if  for  want  of  oil.) 

Voice  without,  still  nearer* 
Manus  habent  et  non  palpabunt,  pedes  habeiit  et  non 
ambulabunt,  non  clamabunt  in  gutture  suo. 

Gennar.o. 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  the  voices  approached. 

Jeppo. 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  the  procession  were  at  this  mo- 
ment under  our  windows. 

Maffio. 
They  are  the  prayers  of  the  dead. 

ASCANIO. 

It's  some  burial. 

Jeppo. 
Let's  drink  to  the  health  of  him  they  are  going  to 
bury. 

GUBETTA. 

How  do  you  know  whether  there  be  not  many  ? 

Jeppo. 
Well,  then,  let's  drink  to  all  their  healths ! 

Apostolo  {to  Gubetta). 
Bravo !  and  let's  continue  our  invocation  to  St.  Peter. 

Gubetta. 
Speak,  then,  more  politely;  one  says  Mr.  St.  Peter, 
honourable   holder  of  the  patent  place  of  jailer,  and 
door-keeper  of  Paradise. 

{He  sings.) 

St.  Peter,  St.  Peter,  ho ! 
Thy  gates  open  fling 
To  the  drinker,  who'll  bring 
A  stout  voice  to  sing 
Domino!  Domino! 

{All.) 
Gloria  Domino ! 
16 


182  DRAMA. 

GUBETTA. 

To  the  drunkard,  who,  stanch 
To  his  wine,  has  a  paunch, 
That  by  Jove  you  might  ask — 
Is't  a  man — or  a  cask! 
All  {in  clashing  their  glasses  together ^  and  laughing  loudly.) 
Gloria  Domino ! 
{The  great  door  at  the  farther  end  of  the  stage  opens 
silently  to  its  full  width.      You  see  within — an  im- 
mense room  hung  with  black — lit  with  torches — and 
with  a  large  silver  cross  at  the  end  of  it.     A  long 
line  of  penitents  in  white  and  blacky  and  whose  eyes 
are  visible  through  their  hoods,  cross  on  head,  and 
torch  in  hand,  enter  by  the  great  door,  chanting  in 
an  ominous  and  loud  voice — 
De  profundis  ad  te  Domine ! 
(Then  they  arrange  themselves  on  the  two  sides  of 
the  room,  and  stand  immoveable  as  statues,  while 
the  young  gentlemen  regard  them  stupified. 

Maffio. 
What  does  this  mean ! 

Jeppo  {forcing  a  laugh). 
It's  some  joke. — I'll  lay  my  charger  against  a  pig,  and 
my  name  of  Liveretto  against  the  name  of  Borgia,  that 
it  is  our  charming  comtesses,  who  have  disguised  them- 
selves in  this  fashion  to  try  our  courage,  and  that  if  we 
lift  up  one  of  those  hoods,  we  shall  find  under  it  the  fresh 
and  wicked  face  of  a  pretty  dame.     Let's  see  ! 

{He  raises,  laughingly,  one  of  the  capuchins,  and 
stands  petrified  at  seeing  under  it  the  livid  face  of 
a  monk,  who  stands  motionless ;  the  torch  in  his 
hand,  and  his  eyes  bent  to  the  ground.  He  lets  the 
cowl  fall,  and  totters  back. 
This  begins  to  be  strange ! 

Maffio. 
I  don't  know  why  my  blood  chills  in  my  veins — 

{The  penitents  sing  loith  a  loud  voice.) 
Conquassabit  capita  in  terra  multorum ! 

Jeppo. 
What  a  terrible  snare!     Our  swords,  our  swords! 
Ah !  gentlemen,  we  are  with  the  devil  here. 


DRAMA.  183 

ACT  III. 

SCENE  II. 

The  same. 
Donna  Lucreoe  {appearing  of  a  sudden^  robed  in  blackj 
on  the  threshold  of  the  door). 
You  are  my  guests ! 

All  (except  Gennaro,  who  observes  every  thing  from  the  re- 
cess of  a  window^  where  he  is  not  seen  by  Donna  Lucrece). 
Lucrece  Borgia ! 

Donna  Lucrece. 
It's  some  days  ago  since  all  of  you  whom  I  see  here 
repeated  that  name  in  triumph.  To-day  you  repeat  it 
in  dread.  Yes,  you  may  look  at  me  with  your  eyes 
glassed  by  terror.  It's  I,  gentlemen!  1  come  to  an- 
nounce to  you  a  piece  of  news — you  are  poisoned,  all  of 
you,  my  lords ;  here  is  not  one  of  you  who  has  an  hour 
to  live.  Don't  stir !  The  room  adjoining  is  filled  with 
pikes.  It's  my  turn  now  to  speak  high,  and  to  crush 
your  heads  beneath  my  heel.  Jeppo  Liveretto,  go  join 
thy  uncle  Vitelli  whom  I  had  poniarded  in  the  caves  of 
the  Vatican!  Ascanio  Petrucci,  go  rejoin  your  cousin 
Pandolfo,  whom  I  had  assassinated  in  order  to  rob  him 
of  his  town !  Oloferno  Vitellozzo,  thy  uncle  expects 
thee — thou  knowest  that  Jago  d'Appiani  whom  1  had 
poisoned  at  a  fdte.  MaiRo  Orsini,  go  talk  of  me  in 
another  world  to  thy  brother  Gravina,  whom  I  had 
strangled  in  his  sleep.  Apostolo  Gazella,  I  had  thy 
father  Francisco  Gazella  beheaded.  I  had  thy  cousin 
Alphonso  of  Arragon  slain,  say'st  thou : — go  and  join 
them !  On  my  soul,  I  think  the  supper  I  gave  you  at 
Ferrara  is  worth  the  ball  you  gave  me  at  Venice.  F6te 
for  f6te,  my  lords ! 

Jeppo. 
This  is  a  rude  waking,  Maffio  ' 

Maffio. 
Let  us  think  of  God ! 

Donna  Lucrece. 
Ah !  my  young  friends  of  last  carnival,  you  did  not 


184  DRAMA. 

quite  expect  this !  Par  Dieu — it  seems  to  me  that  I  can 
revenge  myself.  What  think  you,  gentlemen  1  Who 
is  the  most  skilled  in  the  art  of  vengeance  here  1  This 
is  Jiot  bad,  1  think — hem  !  W^hat  say  you  1  for  a  woman ! 
— {To  the  monks.)  My  fathers,  carry  these  gentlemen 
into  the  adjoining  room,  which  is  prepared  for  their  re- 
ception. Confess  them !  and  profit  by  the  few  instants 
which  remain  to  them  to  save  what  can  be  saved  of  their 
souls.  Gentlemen,  I  advise  those  among  you  who  have 
souls,  to  look  after  them.  Rest  satisfied !  they  are  in 
good  hands.  These  worthy  fathers  are  the  regular 
monks  of  St.  Sixtus,  permitted  by  our  holy  father  the 
pope  to  assist  me  on  occasions  such  as  this — and  if  I 
have  been  careful  of  your  souls,  1  have  not  been  careless 
of  your  bodies. — Judge  ! — (To  the  monks  who  are  before 
the  door  at  the  end).  Stand  on  one  side  a  little,  my  fathers, 
so  that  these  gentlemen  may  see. 

{The  monks  withdraw^  and  leave  visible  five  coffins^ 

covered  each  with  a  black  cloth,  and  ranged  before 

the  door. 
The  number  is  there — there  are  five  ! — Ah !  young  men ! 
you  tear  out  the  bowels  of  a  poor  woman,  and  you  think 
she'll  not  avenge  herself.  Here,  Jeppo,  is  your  coffin — 
Maffio,  here  is  yours.  Oloferno,  Apostolo,  Ascanio, 
here  are  yours ! 

Gennaro  {whom  she  had  not  seen  till  then,  steps  forth). 
There  must  be  a  sixth,  madam. 

Donna  Lucrece. 
Heavens,  Gennaro ! 

Gennaro. 
Himself! 

Lucrece. 
Let  everybody  leave  the  room — ^let  us  be  left  alone. 
Gubetta,  whatever  happens,  whatever  you  may  hear 
without,  let  no  one  enter  here. 

Gubetta. 

You  shall  be  obeyed. 

{The  monks  go  out  in  procession,  taking  with  them  in 
their  ranks  the  five  seigneurs,  tottering  with  wine. 

Lucrece  now  presses  Gennaro  to  save  himself  by 


DRAMA.  185 

taking  what  remains  of  the  antidote  she  had  formerly 
given  him.     He  asks, 

Is  there  enough  to  save  all  1 
She  answers, 

No ;  barely  enough  for  one. 

Gennaro  then,  furious  at  the  death  of  his  friends, 
seizes  a  knife  from  a  table,  and  prepares  to  inflict  the 
death  which  Lucrece  had  merited  for  her  crimes. 

LUCRECE. 

Oh !  Gennaro,  if  thou  knewest — if  thou  knewest  the 
relationship  between  us !  Thou  knowest  not  how  near 
and  dear  thou  art  to  me — thou  knowest  not  how  we  are 
connected. — The  same  blood  runs  in  our  veins. — Thy 
father  was  Jean  Borgia,  Duke  of  Gandia. 

Gennaro. 

Your  brother ; — then  you  are  my  aunt. 

"  His  aunt !"  says  Lucrece,  falteringly  ;  and  before 
her  is  death  on  one  side,  and  an  acknowledgment  to  her 
own  son  of  incest  with  his  father  on  the  other 

She  hesitates  to  say  all,  and  Gennaro,  who  looks 
upon  her  as  his  aunt,  and  the  persecutrix  of  his  mother, 
is  only  more  resolved  in  his  plans  of  vengeance. 

'*  A  crime,"  he  says  :  "  and  supposing  it  be  a  crime, 
am  I  not  a  Borgia  T' 

At  this  instant  the  dying  voice  of  Maffio  d'Orsini 
calling  for  vengeance  comes  to  him  from  the  adjoining 
chamber.     He  stabs   Lucrece — "  Ah  !    tu  m'as  tuee, 
Gennaro  ; — je  suis  ta  mere." 
16* 


DRAMA. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  merits  of  M.  V.  Hugo — His  theory — M.  V,  Hugo  aims  at  unat- 
tainable things — M.  Dumas  at  attainable  things — Translation  from 
Antony. 

1  HAVE  preferred  thus  copiously  translating  from 
Lucrece  Borgia,  to  writing  a  more  formal  description, 
with  short  and  imperfect  extracts,  of  M.  V.  Hugo's 
different  dramatic  productions. 

In  the  first  place,  I  thus  give  a  tolerable  idea^  at  all 
events,  of  one  of  this  writer's  principal  dramas.  In  the 
next  place,  by  selecting  a  popular  performance,  I  obtain 
the  right  to  judge  the  audience  which  applauded  that 
performance  ;  and  lastly,  by  selecting  for  criticism  a 
work  which  was  written  on  a  particular  plan,  and 
which,  written  on  that  plan,  has  succeeded,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  I  have  taken  an  unfair  opportunity  of 
judging  and  condemning  this  plan  itself. 

As  far  as  the  ta|*»nt  of  the  author  is  concerned  in 
Lucrece  Borgia,  I  vrn  that  I  admire  the  dark,  and 
terrible,  and  magnificent,  though  coarse  and  furious, 
energy  that  he  has  here  brought  upon  the  stage.  The 
last  act ;  the  act  in  which  you  see  the  wine-cup  and 
the  bier,  in  which  you  hear  the  bacchanal  and  the  dirge, 
in  which,  mingled  with  the  voluptuaries  garlanded  with 
roses,  stalk  forth  the  cowled  instruments  of  assassina- 
tion and  religion  ;  the  last  act,  in  the  wild  mixture  of 
death  and  luxury,  of  murder  and  superstition,  exhibits 
one  of  the  most  striking,  the  most  terrific,  the  most 
tremendous  pageants  that  has  yet  been  brought  upon 
the  modern  stage. 

The  author  of  Hemani  and  Lucrece  Borgia  is  not 
only  a  writer  of  extraordinary  powers,  but  a  writer 
of  extraordinary  powers  in  that  very  branch  of  com- 
position wherein  he  has  generally  been  deemed  the 


DRAMA.  187 

least  successful.  M.  Victor  Hugo  might  aspire  to 
the  place  (under  a  total  change  of  the  circumstances 
of  life,  and  therefore  under  a  total  change  in  the 
rules  of  art)  which  Corneille  or  Racine  once  held 
upon  the  stage  of  his  country,  and,  I  had  almost 
said,  to  a  place  near  that  which  Shakspeare  once  held 
upon  our  own.  But  why,  then — why  is  it  that  some  of 
his  attempts  have  been  such  signal  failures  ?  Why  is 
it  that,  in  some  of  his  dramas,  without  ever  soaring  to 
the  sublime,  he  has  grovelled  amid  the  ridiculous, 
while  even  in  the  last  piece  I  have  quoted,  in  one  of 
those  where  there  is  the  most  to  admire,  I  confe':is  chat 
there  appears  to  me  at  least  as  much  to  forgive. 

It  is  not  that  M.  Victor  Hugo  is  incapable  of  oeing 
a  great  dramatist,  but  that  he  has  laid  down  a  set  of 
rules  which  almost  render  it  impossible  that  he  should 
be  one.  The  system  which  spoils  the  romance  of 
"  Notre  Dame,"*  has  been  carried  out  to  the  most 
extravagant  extent,  where  it  is  still  less  calculated  to 
succeed;  and  what  is  most  extraordinary,  M.  Hugo 
lays  it  down,  with  all  the  solemnity  of  profound  wisdom, 
that  the  great  art  of  exciting  interest  and  propagating 
morality  is  to  take  for  your  heroes  and  your  heroines 
the  most  atrocious  characters,  a.  '  inspire  them  with 
some  one  most  excessive  virtue.  It  is  hardly  to  be 
believed  that  such  a  doctrine  should  be  gravely  stated : 
but  let  us  hear  M.  Victor  Hugo  himself ! 

"  What  is  the  secret  thought  of  the  *  Roi  s'Amuse  ?' 
This : — Take  the  most  monstrous  physical  deformity — 
place  it  in  the  meanest  and  most  degraded  social  po- 
sition.! Well ;  give  this  creature  a  soul,  and  breathe 
into  this  soul  the  sentiment  of  paternity.  The  de- 
graded creature  will  become  sublime,  the  little  creature 

*  A  beautiful  romance — in  which  the  most  interesting  person,  how- 
ever, is  described  as  the  likeness  of  a  grotesque  figure  in  a  gothic 
church — and  one  of  the  most  dehcate  females  ever  drawn  by  the  pen 
of  romance  trembles  like  a  frog ! 

•f  Triboulet,  the  well-knovra  buffoon  of  Francis  I.  The  play 
turns  on  the  grief  of  this  wretch,  painted  by  M.  V.  Hugo  himself  as 
the  vilest  of  mankind,  at  his  daughter's  being  seduced  by  the  king, — a 
misfortune  which,  according  to  his  character  and  the  character  of  his 
times,  he  would  have  been  too  happy  to  undergo. 


188  DRAMA. 

will  become  great,  the  depraved  creature  will  become 
beautiful. 

"  This  is  the  Roi  s'Amuse.  And  what  is  Lucr^ce 
Borgia?  Now  take  the  moral  deformity,  the  most 
hideous,  the  most  disgusting,  the  most  complete ;  put 
it,  where  it  is  most  remarkable,  in  the  breast  of  a 
woman,  and  plant  in  this  breast  ihe  purest  senti- 
ment a  woman  can  possess — the  sentiment  of  ma- 
ternity, and  the  monster  will  interest  you,  and  the 
monster  will  make  you  weep,  and  that  soul  so  deformed 

will  be  replete  with  grace  and  loveliness The 

author  will  not  bring  Marion  de  Lorme*  on  the  stage 
without  ennobling  her  with  a  pure  affection,  nor  Tri- 
boulet  without  making  him  an  excellent  father ;  nor 
Lucre ce  Borgia  without  making  her  a  devoted 
mother."  True,  if  there  were  any  law  to  oblige  a 
dramatist  to  choose  the  characters  of  Marion  de 
Lorme,  and  Triboulet,  and  Lucr^ce  Borgia,  and 
awake  in  the  mind  of  his  audience  an  affectionate 
interest  for  such  characters — if  there  were  such  a 
barbarous  law  as  this— it  might  then  be  very  well,  and 
perhaps  very  right,  for  the  author  to  say,  "  I'll  soften 
the  characters  I  am  obliged  to  use  in  this  manner,  and 
since  1  must  make  them  as  interesting,  I  will  make 
them  as  virtuous  as  I  can." — It  is  very  true,  moreover, 
that  a  vicious  buffoon  may  possibly  love  his  daughter, 
that  a  depraved  woman  of  the  town  may  have  a  chaste 
and  noble  passion,  that  a  murderess  and  assassin  may 
adore  her  son.  But  when  an  author  may  choose  any 
personage  he  thinks  proper,  and  may  give  to  that  per- 
sonage any  part  he  thinks  proper — if  he  wish  to  inter- 
est us  with  a  tale  of  extraordinary  filial  affection,  he 
should  not  take  a  villanous  buffoon  for  his  hero,  any 
more  than,  if  he  wish  to  interest  us  in  a  tale  of  pure 
and  romantic  love,  he  should  take  a  harlot  for  his 
heroine. 

In  allying  things  hideous  with  things   beauteous, 

*  The  famous  prostitute  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.  The  force  of 
the  drama  consists  in  the  pure  and  passionate  attachment  of  this  lady 
for  a  youth,  to  save  whom  from  prison  she  sacrifices  once  more  her 
oft-sacrificed  hono*>r 


DRAMA.  189 

tilings  vicious  with  things  virtuous,  instead  of  enno- 
bling ugliness  by  the  beauty,  vice  by  the  virtue  you 
connect  with  it,  you  too  frequently  make  that  ridiculous 
and  ignoble  which  should  be  kept  sacred,  venerated, 
and  religious. 

"  Affix  God  to  the  gibbet,"  says  M.  Victor  Hugo, 
*'  and  you  have  the  cross."  We  know  that  punishment 
does  not  constitute  crime,  that  God  does  not  cease  to 
be  God  for  his  crucifixion ;  but  to  prove  the  value  of 
M.  Victor  Hugo's  theory,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
show— not  that  Christ  remained  Christ  after  he  was 
crucified — but  that  he  actually  became  Christ  by  the 
very  act  of  his  crucifixion. 

Nothing  can  be  so  absurd  as  to  attempt  to  arrive  at  a 
particular  eifect  in  opposition  to  the  natural  sympathies 
that  produce  it.  It  is  very  true  that  a  young  man  may 
be  attached  to  an  ugly  old  woman.  We  have  all 
known  instances  of  this  ;  yet  if  Romeo  had  killed  him- 
self for  Juliet's  aunt,  or  Juliet's  duenna,  or  Juliet's 
grandmother,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  audience 
would  not  have  been  quite  as  much  inclined  to  laugh 
at  him  for  a  consummate  fool  as  to  weep  for  him  as  a 
romantic  lover.  It  is  the  grace,  the  beauty,  the  tender 
years  of  Juliet — it  is  this  which  makes  us  feel  all  the 
passion,  and  comprehend  all  the  despair  of  the  Italian 
youth.  The  wonderful  art  of  Shakspeare  is,  that  with- 
out distorting  a  character  into  a  caricature,  he  always 
takes  care  that  it  produces  in  us  a  right  ejETect.  We 
view  Richard  III.  with  horror,  and  yet  he  is  a  great 
captain — a  wise  and  provident  monarch — valiant — in- 
telligent. The  deformities  of  the  usurper  are  not 
exaggerated,  his  merits  are  allowed:  but  still  in  spite 
of  the  admiration  we  feel  for  his  gallantry  as  a  soldier, 
for  his  sagacity  as  a  prince,  we  despise  him  as  a 
hypocrite,  and  hate  him  as  an  assassin. 

JM.  V.  Hugo  would  have  made  us  love  him  in  spite 
of  his  hump,  in  spite  of  his  murders,  in  spite  of  his 
dissembling,  in  spite  of  all  these  defects  and  a  hundred 
others  if  he  had  them ;  nay,  on  account  of  these  very 
defects  themselves,  he  would  have  selected  him  just 
27 


190  DRAMA. 

as  the  person  that  we  should  love,  that  we  must  love, 
and  this  for  some  peculiar  virtue,  the  very  last  we 
should  have  suspected  him  of. 

If  M.  V.  Hugo  were  to  wish  to  inspire  you  with 
terror,  reader,  he  would  try  to  frighten  you  with  a 
sheep ;  if  he  were  to  wish  to  give  you  an  idea  of 
swiftness,  he  would  prefer  doing  it  by  a  tortoise. 

Lucrece  Borgia  met  with  very  deserved  success,  but 
this  was  in  spite  of  the  principle  it  was  written  upon, 
and  not  on  account  of  it ;  it  was  on  account  of  the  vivid 
colouring,  the  passionate  energy,  the  quick  succession 
of  action,  the  force  and  the  magnificence  of  two  or 
three  dramatic  situations,  and  in  spite  of  the  sentimental 
whining  of  an  Italian  mercenary  after  an  unknown 
mother  who  had  abandoned  him,  and  the  ridiculous  and 
puling  affection  of  such  a  woman  as  Lucrece  Borgia  for 
her  incestuous  offspring,  that  this  piece  succeeded. 

I  remember  a  story,  told  in  some  learned  nursery 
book,  of  a  contest  between  the  archers  of  King  Rich- 
ard and  those  of  Robin  Hood.  The  archers  of  King 
Richard,  rather  too  confident  perhaps  in  their  skill,  pre- 
ferred showing  it  by  shooting  at  the  moon,  while  the 
shrewder  archers  of  Robin  Hood  shot  at  the  target. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  archers  of  Robin 
Hood  carried  off  all  the  prizes.  This  is  just  the  dif- 
ference between  M.  Victor  Hugo  and  M.  Dumas. 
The  one  aims  at  attainable,  the  other  at  unattainable 
objects.  The  one  looks  to  the  success  he  is  to 
obtain,  the  other  at  the  theory  through  which  he  is 
determined  to  obtain  it.  For  strength  and  poesy  of 
language,  for  force  and  magnificence  of  conception, 
there  can  be  no  comparison  between  M.  V.  Hugo  and 
M.  Dumas.  The  first  has  nobler  and  loftier  elements 
for  the  composition  of  a  dramatic  poet,  the  second  pro- 
duces a  more  perfect  effect  from  inferior  materials. 
M.  V.  Hugo  never  steps  out  of  the  sublime  without 
falling  at  once  into  the  absurd — however  triumphant 
the  piece  you  are  listening  to  may  be  in  a  particular 
passage,  you  never  feel  sure  that  it  will  succeed  as  a 
whole— some  word,  some  phrase  surprises  and  shocks 


DRAMA.  191 

you  when  you  least  expect  it.  From  the  moment  that 
the  curtain  is  lilted,  until  the  moment  it  falls,  the  author 
is  in  a  perpetual  struggle  with  his  audience — now  you 
are  inclined  to  smile,  and  he  suddenly  forces  you  to 
admire, — now  you  are  inclined  to  admire,  and  again 
you  are  involuntarily  compelled  to  laugh. 

In  nothing  is  M.  V.  Hugo  consistent :  careless  of 
applause,  as  you  would  suppose,  and  might  really  be- 
lieve, from  the  plan  he  pursues — at  times  he  testifies 
the  most  vulgar  desire  for  a  cheer — and  a  lady  declares 
to  the  pit  at  the  Porte  St.  Martin,  that  there  is  some- 
thing finer  than  being  the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury,  viz. 
being  the  wife  of  a  cutler's  apprentice  !  ! 

Recondite  in  his  research  after  costume  and 
scenery,  this  writer  despises  and  confounds,  in  the  most 
painful  manner,  historical  facts.  In  Marie  Tudor,* 
Mary  of  England,  whose  chastity,  poor  woman,  was 

*  It  is  very  difficult  to  make  the  plan  of  Marie  Tudor  intelligible, 
more  especially  since  the  author  has  not  succeeded  in  doing  so. 
Marie  Tudor,  just  before  her  marriage  with  Philip,  has  for  paramour 
an  Italian  adventurer,  Fabiani.  This  Italian  adventurer  seduces  a 
young  woman  betrothed  to  a  cutler's  apprentice,  who  appears  to  be 
in  tiie  lowest  state  of  life,  but  who  is  in  reality  a  Talbot,  a  Countess 
of  Shrewsbury,  and  the  Lord  knows  what  besides.  The  queen,  dis- 
covering this  intrigue,  is  determined  to  be  avenged,  and  in  order  to 
be  so,  she  asks  the  apprentice,  as  the  reward  for  her  recognising  the 
rights  of  the  new  Countess  of  Shrewsbury,  to  pretend  to  stab  her 
(the  queen),  and  accuse  Fabiani  of  having  bribed  him  to  do  it,  in 
which  case  he  and  Fabiani  will  both  be  disposed  of  by  the  execu- 
tioner. Gilbert,  the  apprentice,  accordingly  does  this,  and  he  and  the 
Italian  are  condemned  to  death  in  a  fashion  in  which  neither  Eng- 
lishman nor  Italian  have,  either  before  or  since,  been  condemned  to 
death  in  Great  Britain. 

Two  great  changes  at  this  time  take  place  in  the  two  ladies'  feel- 
ings : — Marie  is  all  agony  to  save  Fabiani,  whom  she  has  taken  such 
pains  to  have  beheaded  ;  and  the  Countess  of  Shrewsbury  discovers 
that  she  never  Uked  Fabiani,  but  the  apprentice,  whom  she  had 
always  before  regretted  she  could  not  love.  The  interest  of  the  play 
now  turns  on  one  of  the  prisoners  having  escaped,  and  each  lady 
believing  that  it  is  her  lover ;  and  there  is  a  fine  scene,  where  Lon- 
don is  shown  joyful  and  illuminated  on  account  of  the  execution, 
which  the  two  ladies  are  both  watching  with  intense  anxiety  from 
the  Tower.     Fabiani  is  beheaded,  and  Gilbert  saved. 

The  follies  of  this  play,  the  queen's  solemn  interview  with  .fack 
Ketch,  the  mysterious  promenadings  of  a  Spanish  ambassador,  the 
luxurious  loves  of  poor  chaste  Marie  Tudor  herself^all  these  it  is 
iinpossibie  to  say  any  thing  of  here,  and  it  would  be  difficult  in  vol- 
fuues  to  say  enough  of  their  grotesque  and  original  absurdity. 


192  DRAMA. 

her  only  virtue,  is  brought  on  the  stage  with  an  Italian 
musician  for  her  lover,  in  the  character  of  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  with  whom  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that 
M.  Hugo  really  confounded  her.* 

Monsieur  Dumas  is  not  quite  so  prodigal  of  these 
defects.  The  drama  of  Henry  III.  is  almost  perfect 
in  its  keeping  with  the  times  of  that  prince's  court. 
The  gallantry,  the  frivolity,  the  confusion,  the  super- 
stition of  that  epoch,  all  find  a  place  there.  The  char- 
acter of  Henry  III.,  crafty,  courageous,  weak,  ener- 
vated, effeminate,  sunk  in  vice,  pleasure,  and  devotion 
— the  character  of  Catherine  de  Medicis,  reading,  per- 
chance believing,  the  stars — but  not  trusting  to  them — 
man  in  her  ambition,  woman  in  her  ways — daring 
every  thing,  and  daring  nothing  openly — meeting  the 
rebellious  plans  of  the  Due  de  Guise  by  a  counter- 
plot against  his  marriage  bed — advising  her  son  to  put 
down  the  League  by  declaring  himself  its  head — these 
two  characters  of  Henry  and  his  mother  are  as  perfect 
historical  portraits,  as  the  melancholy,  interesting,  and 
high  and  stern-minded  St.  Megrim  is  a  perfect  imagina- 
tive picture. 

Set  Henry  III.  by  the  side  of  Lucrece  Borgia — there  is 
no  one  part  in  Henry  Ill.f  to  be  compared  with  the  last 
act — the  supper  in  the  Negroni  Palace,  in  Lucrece  Bor- 
gia. There  is  no  one  part  in  Henry  III.  in  which  such 
splendid  and  gay  and  dark  images  are  so  massed  toge- 
ther— where  such  terror  and  such  luxury,  such  gayety 

*  "  Rien  n'y  contredit  I'histoire  bien  que  beaucoup  de  choses  y 
soyent  ajoutees;  rien  n'y  est  violento  par  les  inconunodites  de  la 
representation,  ni  par  I'unit^  de  Jour,  ni  par  celle  de  lieu."  In  what 
Corneille  said  of  Cinna,  M.  V.  Hugo  may  find  a  lesson. 

t  Henry  III.  has  been  so  well  translated,  and  is  so  well  known  in 
Catherine  of  Cleves,  that  1  only  refer  to  it.  The  plot  consists  in  the 
fact  I  have  alluded  to.  Catherine  de  Medicis,  in  order  to  occupy 
the  Due  de  Guise,  foments  a  passion  between  the  duchesse  and  one 
of  Henry's  favourites,  St.  Megrim.  The  due  discovers  the  intrigue, 
entraps  St.  Megi  im,  and  has  him  slain.  The  whole  play  turns,  as  I 
have  said  in  an  early  part  of  this  work,  on  a  lost  podut-handkerchief, 
which  occasioned  the  lines  I  then  quoted — 

"  Messieurs  et  mesdames— cette  pi^ce  est  morale 
EUe  prouve  aujourd'hui  sans  laire  de  scandale 
Que  chez  un  amant,  lorsqu'on  va  le  soir, 
On  peut  oublier  tout— except^  son  mouchoir." 


DRAMA.  193 

and  such  horror,  are  thrust  in  vivid  contrast  at  once 
upon  you.  But  the  play  of  M.  Dumas,  though  it  does 
not  strike  you  as  the  product  of  so  powerful  a  talent  as 
that  of  M.  Hugo,  satisfies  you  better  as  the  work  of  a 
more  natural  talent.  Its  a<:tion  seems  to  you  more 
easily  animated,  more  unalfectedly  developed.  It  does 
not  startle  you  so  much  at  different  passages,  but  it 
Keeps  your  attention  more  continually  alive — it  does 
not  agitate  you  at  times  so  terribly  during  the  perform- 
ance, but  it  leaves  a  more  full  and  complete  impression 
upon  your  mind  when  the  curtain  drops. 

Between  Henry  III.  and  the  other  pieces  of  M.  A. 
Dumas,  there  appears  to  me,  however,  no  comparison. 
There  is  in  that  piece  a  grace,  a  dignity,  a  truth,  which 
one  seeks  in  vain,  as  it  appears  to  me,  in  the  subse- 
quent productions  which  crowded  audiences  have  de- 
clared equally  successful. 

Antony  is  the  play,  perhaps,  in  which  the  public 
have  seen  most  to  admire.  The  plot  is  simple,  the 
action  rapid,  the  divisions  decided — each  act  contains 
an  event,  and  each  event  develops  the  character  and 
tends  to  the  catastrophe  of  the  piece.  Antony  is  an 
illegitimate  child,  brought  up  by  charity,  and  who 
never  knew  his  parents.  He  is  rich,  however,  and  in 
love  with  Adele  (a  young  lady  of  good  fortune  and 
family),  to  whom  he  does  not  venture  to  propose  on 
account  of  the  mystery  of  his  birth* — a  mystery  with 
which  the  young  lady,  and  Antony's  acquaintance  in 
general,  it  would  seem,  are  strangely  unacquainted. 
Adele,  attached  to  Antony,  but  piqued  and  offended  at 
his  conduct,  for  he  had  left  her  suddenly,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  she  supposed  him  likely  to  claim  her  hand, 
marries  a  Col.  Hervey.  It  is  three  years  after  this 
marriage,  I  think,  that  the  play  begins. 

Antony  then  returns  and  rei^uests,  as  a  friend,  an 
interview  with  Adele,  which  she  determines  to  avoid, 
and  getting  into  her  carriage,  leaves  her  sister  to  re- 

*  One  of  the  absurdities  of  this  play,  as  a  pictiire  of  French  man- 
ners, is  this  extraordinary  disgrace  which  the  author  has  attached  to 
illegitimacy  in  a  capital  where  there  is  bom  more  than  one  illegiti- 
mate child  to  every  two  legitimate  ones. 


194  DRAMA. 

ceive  the  visiter.  The  horses,  however,  run  away 
with  her,  and  by  one  of  those  old  and  convenient  acci- 
dents which  authors  have  not  yet  dispensed  with,  An- 
ton) stops  them,  saves  her  life,  gets  injured  in  the 
chivalrous  enterprise,  and  is  carried  by  the  physician's 
order  to  Madame  d'Hervey's  house.  Here  he  soon 
finds  an  opportunity  to  tell  his  misfortune,  his  despair, 
the  passion  he  feels,  and  the  reasons  why  he  did  not 
declare  it  sooner — and  Adele,  after  hearing  all  this, 
thinks  it  safer  to  make  the  best  of  her  way  after  her 
husband,  who  is  at  Frankfort. 

She  starts,  her  voyage  is  nearly  over,  when  she  ar- 
rives at  a  little  inn,  where  she  is  obliged  to  stop,  on 
account  of  another  convenient  accident— a  want  of 
post-hoi;ses.  Here  the  following  scene  will  explain 
what  takes  place. 

SCENE  vn. 

Hostess,  Adele. 
Hostess  {^from  without). 
Coming !  coming ! — {entering.) — Was  it  madame  who 
called  ? 

Adele. 

I  wish  to  go.     Are  the  horses  returned  % 

Hostess. 
They  were  hardly  gone  when  madame  arrived,  and  I 
don't  expect  them  before  two  or  three  hours.     Would 
madame  repose  herself  T 

Adele. 
Where  ? 

Hostess. 
In  this  cabinet,  there's  a  bed. 
Adele. 
Your  cabinet  does  not  shut. 

Hostess. 
The  two  doors  of  this  room  shut  inside. 

Adele. 
True.  1  need  not  be  alarmed  here. 


DRAMA.  195 

Hostess  {bringing  a  light  into  the  cabinet). 
What  could  madame  be  alarmed  at  1 

Adele. 
This  is  silly. — [Hostess  goes  out  of  the  cabinet) — Come, 
for  Heaven's  sake,  and  tell  me  as  soon  as  the  horses  are 
returned. 

Hostess. 
The  very  instant,  madame. 

Adele  (going  into  the  cabinet). 
No  accident  can  happen  in  this  hotel  1 

Hostess. 
None.    If  madame  wishes  it,  I  will  order  some  on© 
to  sit  up. 

Adele  {at  the  entry  of  the  cabinet). 

No,  no — indeed — excuse  me — leave  me. 

{She  goes  into  the  cabinet  and  shuts  the  door. 

(Antony  appears  on  the  balcony  behind  the  window^ 

breaks  a  glass,  pushes  his  arm  through,  ppens  the 

window,  enters  quickly,  and  bolts  the  door  which 

the  Hostess  just  ivent  out  at). 

Adele  {coming  out  of  the  cabinet). 
A  noise — a  man — oh ! 

Antony. 
Silence ! — {taking  her  in  his  arms  and  putting  a  handker- 
chief  to  her  mouth) — It's  I — 1 — Antony. 

{He  carries  her  into  the  cabinet.) 

Thus  ends  Act  III, 

Some  months  have  passed  away.  Antony  and  his 
mistress  are  then  at  Paris,  and  Col.  d'Hervey  still  (this 
is  again  convenient)  remains  at  Frankfort,  where  An- 
tony has  sent  a  faithful  servant,  who  is  to  watch  over 
the  movements  of  the  unfortunate  husband,  and  ride  to 
Paris  with  the  news,  if  he  should  take  it  into  his  head 
to  return. 

You  are  now  taken  to  a  ball ;  and  here  Adele  gets 

insulted  by  a  lady  for  her  supposed  weakness  in  favour 

of  Antony — the  weakness,  as  yet,  is  only  supposed. 

Antony  consoles  his  mistress  for  this  insult,  which  one 

12 


196  DRAMA. 

does  not.  quite  see  why  she  received,  since  her  friend, 
the  hostess  and  queen  of  the  ball,  has  already  changed 
her  lover  two  or  three  tunes  during  the  piece.  Mis- 
fortunes, says  the  proverb,  never  come  singly,  and 
hardly  can  Adele  have  got  home,  when  the  servant 
who  had  been  stationed  at  Frankfort  arrives,  and  an- 
nounces that  Col.  d'Hervey  will  be  at  Paris  almost  as 
soon  as  himself. 

Antony  hurries  to  his  mistress's  house,  and  endeav- 
ours to  persuade  her  to  elope  with  him  immediately. 


ACT  V. 
SCENE  III. 

Antony. 

Well,  thou  seest  remaining  here,  there  is  no  hope  in 
heaven  .  .  .  Listen,  I  am  free — my  fortune  will  follow 
me — besides,  if  it  failed,  I  could  supply  it  easily.  A 
carriage  is  below.  Listen  and  consider,  there  is  no 
other  course.  If  a  heart  devoted — if  the  whole  exist- 
ence of  a  man  cast  at  thy  feet,  suffice  thee,  say  "  Yes." 
Italy,  England,  Germany,  offer  us  an  asylum.  1  tear 
thee  from  thy  family,  from  thy  country — well,  I  will  be 
to  thee  family — country.  A  change  of  name  will  dis- 
guise us  from  the  world.  No  one  will  know  who  we 
were  till  we  are  dead.  We'll  live  alone — thou  shalt  be 
my  fortune,  my  God,  my  Ufe.  I'll  have  no  will  but 
thine,  no  happiness  but  thine.  Come,  come,  we  are 
enough  for  each  other  to  forget  the  world. 

Adele. 
Yes,  yes — but  one  word  to  Clara. 

Antony. 
We  have  not  a  minute  to  lose. 

Adele. 
My  child,  my  daughter — I  must  embrace  my  girl— 
seest  thou — this  is  a  last  adieu,  an  eternal  farewell ! 

Antony. 
Well,  yes ! — go,  go. — {He  pushes  her,) 


O  my  God ! 

What  ails  thee  ? 


DRAMA.  IS? 

Adele. 
Antony. 


Adele. 
My  daughter! — leave  my  daughter! — my  daughter, 
who  will  be  reproached  one  day  with  the  crime  of  her 
mother,  who  will  still  live,  perhaps,  though  not  for  her. 
My  girl !  my  poor  child !  who  will  expect  to  be  presented 
to  the  world  as  innocent,  and  who  will  be  presented  to 
it  as  dishonoured  as  her  mother,  and  dishonoured  by  her 
mother's  fault. 

Antony. 
O  my  God ! 

Adele. 
Is  it  not  so  ■?     A  blot  once  fallen  upon  a  name  is  not 
effaced — it  eats  into  it — it  preys  upon  it — it  destroys  it. 
Oh  my  daughter,  my  daughter ! 

Antony. 
Well ! — we'll  take  her  with  us :  let  her  come  with  us. 
But  yesterday,  I  should  have  thought  it  impossible  to 
love  her — the  daughter  of  another — of  thee.  Well ! 
she  shall  be  my  daughter,  my  adopted  child.  But  come 
— take  her  then;  every  instant  is  death.  What  dost 
thou  consider  about "? — he  is  coming,  he  is  coming ! — he 
is  yonder ! 

Adele. 

Wretch  that  I  am  become !  Where  am  I?  and  where 
hast  thou  conducted  mel  and  all  this  in  three  months. 
An  honourable  man  confides  his  name  to  me — places  his 
happiness  in  me — trusts  his  daughter  to  me !  I  adore  her 
— She  is  his  hope,  his  old  age,  the  being  in  whom  he 
hopes  to  survive.  Thou  comest — it  is  but  three  months. 
My  smothered  love  awakes — I  dishonour  the  name  in- 
trusted to  me — I  destroy  the  happiness  reposed  on  me ; 
and  this  is  not  all — no,  this  is  not  enough — I  carry  away 
from  him  the  daughter  of  his  heart.  I  disinherit  his  old 
days  of  his  child's  caresses,  and  in  exchange  of  his  love 
I  give  him  shame,  sorrow,  solitude !  Tell  me,  Antony, 
is  not  this  infamy  '^ 

Antony. 

What  wouldst  the  a  do  then? 
17* 


1 98  DRAMA. 

Adele. 
Stay— 

Antony. 

And  when  he  shall  have  discovered  every  thing — 

Adele. 
He'll  kill  me. 

Antony  proposes  they  should  die  together — "  Blessed 
he  God,"  he  says, — 

Blessed  be  God,  who  made  my  life  for  unity !  Blessed  be 
God  that  1  can  quit  life  without  drawing  a  tear  from 
eyes  that  love  me.  Blessed  be  God  for  having  allowed 
me,  in  the  age  of  hope,  to  have  known  and  been  fatigued 
with  every  thing  .  .  .  One  bond  alone  attached  me  to 
this  world  .  .  .  Thou  wert  that  bond — it  breaks — I  am 
content  to  die,  but  I  would  with  thee  ...  I  wish  the 
last  beatings  of  our  hearts  to  respond — our  last  sighs  to 
mingle.  Dost  thou  understand  T  ...  A  death  as  soft 
as  sleep — a  death  happier  than  our  life.  .  .  .  Then — 
who  knows  ?-  from  pity,  perhaps,  they'll  throw  our  bodies 
into  the  same  tomb. 

Adele. 

Oh!  yes!  That  would  be  heaven,  if  my  memory 
could  die  with  me — but  if  I  die  thus,  the  world  will  say- 
to  my  child — "  Your  mother  thought  to  escape  shame  by- 
death  .  .  .  and  she  died  in  the  arms  of  the  man  who  had 
dishonoured  her" — and  if  my  poor  girl  say  "  No,"  they 
will  lift  up  the  stone  that  covers  our  grave,  and  say, 
"  There,  see  them  !" 

Antony. 

Oh !  we  are  indeed  damned,  neither  to  live  nor  die  ! 
Adele. 

Yes,  yes.    I  ought  to  die — I  alone — thou  seest  it- 
...  Go  then,  in  the  name  of  heaven — go ! 

Antony. 
Go !  .  .  .  quit  thee  !  .  .  .  when  he  comes  ...  to  have 
had  thee,  and  to  have  lost  thee !  .  .  .  hell !  .  .  .  And 
were  he  not  to  kill  thee  .  .  .  were  he  to  pardon  thee  .  .  . 
To  have  been  guilty  of  rape,  violence,  adultery — to  have 
possessed  thee — and  can  I  hesitate  at  anew  crime,  that 
is,  to  keep  thee  ?— What !  lose  my  soul  for  so  Httle  ! 
Satan  would  iaugh.     Thou  art  foolish.     No,  no  !    Thou 


DRAMA. 


199 


art  mine  as  man  is  misfortune's  (seizing  her  in  his  arms.) 
Thou  must  live  for  me.  ...  I  carry  thee  away. — Evil 
be  on  the  head  of  him  who  would  prevent  me  ! 

.  Adele. 

Oh!  oh! 

Antony. 

Cries,  tears,  it  matters  not ! 

Adele. 

My  daughter !  my  daughter ! 

Antony. 
She's  a  child,  and  will  laugh  to-morrow. 

(They  are  just  on  the  point  of  going  outy  when  a  doU' 
ble  knock  is  heard  at  the  street  door. 

Adele  (bursting  from  Antonyms  arms). 

Oh !  it's  he.  .  .  .  Oh !  my  God !  my  God !   Have  pity 
on  me  !  pardon,  pardon ! 

Antony. 
Come,  it  is  over  now ! 

Adele. 
Somebody's  coming  up  stairs  .  .  .  somebody  rings — 
(It  must  be  remembered  this  is  a  French  house,  and  the  knock 
was  at  the  outer  door.) — It's  my  husband — fly,  fly  ! 

Antony  (fastening  the  door). 
Not  I — I  fly  not  .  .  .  Listen!  .  .  .  You  said  just  now 
that  you  did  not  fear  death. 

Adele. 
No,  no  ...  Oh !  kill  me,  for  pity's  sake ! 

Antony. 
A  death  that  would  save  thy  reputation,  that  of  thy 
child? 

Adele. 

I'll  beg  for  it  on  my  knees. 
(A  voice  from  without;  "  Open,  open!  break  open  the  door!") 

Antony. 
And  in  thy  last  breath  thou  wilt  not  curse  thy  assassin  ? 


200  DRAMA. 

Adele. 
I'll  bless  him — but  be  quick  .  .  .  that  door. 

Antony. 
Fear  nothing !  death  shall  be  here  before  any  one. 
But  reflect  on  it  well — death  ! 

Adele. 

I  beg  it — wish  it — implore  it  {throwing  herself  into  his 
arms) — I  come  to  seek  it. 

Antony  {kissing  her). 
Well  then,  die ! 

{He  stabs  her  with  a  poniard. 

Adele  {falling  into  afauteuil). 
Ah! 

{At  the  same  moment  the  door  is  forced  open.     Col. 
d'Hervey  rushes  on  to  the  stage. 

SCENE  IV. 

Col.  d'Hervey^  Antony,  Adele,  and  different  servants. 

Col.  d'Hervey. 
Wretch  '.—What  do  I  see  1— Adele  ! 

Antony. 
Dead,  yes,  dead ! — she  resisted  me,  and  I  assassinated 
her. 

{He  throws  his  dagger  at  the  ColoneVs  feet. 


DRAMA.  201 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  merits  of  M.  Dumas—"  Ang^le"— "  Darlington"—"  Teresa"— 
'*  Tour  de  Nesle"— Description  of  the  effect  produced  by  "  Tour  de 
Nesle" — The  characters  of  a  time  should  be  in  the  character  of 
the  time — M.  Dumas  dresses  up  the  nineteenth  century  in  a  hvery 
of  heroism,  turned  up  with  assassination  and  incest. 

There  is  enough,  I  think,  even  in  the  short  and  im- 
perfect translation  I  have  just  given  from  Antony,  to 
show  considerable  energy  and  talent,  and  that  kind  of 
passion  and  movement  which  hurries  away  an  audi- 
ence. Indeed,  the  productions  of  M.  Dumas,  which  lose 
much  of  their  effect  in  reading,  afford,  in  acting,  a  thou- 
sand proofs  of  this  author's  having  taken  every  pains  to 
study  and  to  succeed  in  the  arts  of  the  stage.  There 
is  a  line  in  "  Angele,"  wonderful  in  its  exemplification 
of  his  knowledge  and  his  study  of  these  arts. 

Angele,*  a  young  lady,  unhappily  seduced,  is  desir- 
ous of  confessing  her  misfortune  to  her  motlier — she 
says  she  has  something  to  say — the  mother  inquires 
tenderly  what  it  is — Angele  weeps — the  mother  takes 
her  hand,  endeavours  to  sooth  and  encourage  her; 
Angele  still  weeps.  "  Is  it  something  so  very  bad, 
then  ?"  says  the  mother,  not  suspecting  her  daughter's 
innocence.     The  daughter  fixes  her  eyes  upon   her 

*  Angele  is  a  young  lady,  seduced  by  an  adventurer  who  intends 
marrying  her  on  a  speculation,  but  on  finding  the  mother  a  better 
affair,  he  engages  himself  to  her.  Angele,  however,  after  being  con- 
fined (which  she  is,  one  may  say,  on  the  stage),  confesses  the  story 
to  her  mamma  just  before  the  marriage  takes  place, 

D'Alvimar,  the  adventurer,  is  for  making  off',  but  is  stopped  by  a 
Doctor  MuUer,  a  young  physician,  who,  having  long  loved  Angele, 
had  accidentally  deUvered  her  of  her  child,  and  now  delivers  her  of 
her  false-hearted  lover,  whom  (by  a  most  unmedical  mode  of  destruc- 
tion) he  shoots,  then  marries  Angele,  adopts  her  child,  and  (in  order 
to  make  her  quite  happy  and  comfortable,  I  suppose)  assures  her  he 
must  die  witmn  the  year  of  a  pulmonary  complaint. 
13 


202  DRAMA. 

mother,  sobs,  struggles  to  speak — the  audience  is  all 
attention.     But  how  make  the  confession  ? 

"  Ah,  si  j'avais  mon  enfant  je-le  mettrais  a  vos  pieds." 

A  more  enthusiastic  burst  than  followed  this  exclama- 
tion (I  saw  the  piece  the  first  night  of  the  representa- 
tion) it  is  impossible  to  describe.* 

M.  Dumas  has  written  Henry  III.,  Antony,  Angele, 
Darlington,t  Teresa,|  and  also  claims  a  share  in  the 
Tour  de  Nesle.§  The  Tour  de  Nesle  is  the  most 
powerful  of  these  performances,  and,  thrown  back 
into  a  dark  century,  is  excusable  in  its  ghastly  ac- 
cumulation of  midnight  horrors.  This  tower,  the 
Tour  de  Nesle,  built  in  the  twelfth  century,  on  the  site 
now  occupied  by  the  college  "  Mazarin,"  tall,  round, 
and  casting  its  gloomy  shadow  on  the  Seine,  was  the 
spot  sacred  to  many  of  the  old  popular  superstitions, 


*  I  remember  another  instance,  in  the  "  Tour  de  Nesle  :"  imme- 
diately after  the  murder  of  Phihppe  Daulnay  and  all  the  abominations 
of  Marguerite  and  her  sisters,  the  guardian  of  the  night  is  heard  with- 
out— "  II  est  trois  heures  ;  tout  est  tranquille — Parisians,  dormez  !" 

t  Darlington  is  the  illegitimate  son  of  a  hangman  (this  is  in  England), 
who  is  determined  to  make  his  fortune.  To  do  this,  nothing  is  so  easy 
(N.B. these  were  the  days  of  unreformed  parliaments)  as  to  be  returned 
M.P.  for  the  County  of  Northumberland  and  the  Borough  of  Darlington 
(both  meaning  the  same  thing).  Darlington,  then,  is  soon  an  M.  P. ; 
and  he  now  makes  a  good  speech,  on  which  he  is  instantly  sent  for 
by  the  minister,  and  offered  at  once,  by  the  king  in  person,  a  secretary- 
ship of  state,  an  earldom,  and  an  immense  estate,  with  the  only  con- 
dition of  his  forsaking  his  principles  and  marrying  a  second  wife,  his 
own  wife  being  yet  living  ;  this  he  of  course  comphes  with.  But  his 
wife  is  more  difficult  to  be  got  rid  of  than  his  principles,  and  in  his 
attempt  to  carry  the  good  lady  abroad,  he  is  stopped  by  his  moral,  and 
virtuous,  and  indignant  father,  the  hangman.  Here  ends  the  piece — 
finis  coronal  apus. 

t  Teresa  is  married  to  an  officer  older  than  herself,  and  who,  in- 
deed, has  a  daughter,  Amelia,  of  nearly  her  age,  Teresa  is  in  love 
with  a  young  man,  Arthur,  who  marries  Amelia  and  then  intrigues 
with  Teresa.  Ameha  gets  possession  of  Teresa's  letters,  without 
knowing  whose  letters  they  are,  but  suspecting  some  intrigue,  places 
them  in  her  father's  hands,  and  her  father  finds  his  wife  and  his  son- 
in-law  to  be  httle  better  than  they  should  be.  He  satisfies  himself, 
however,  with  hurrying  daughter  and  son-in-law  off  on  a  fonugn  mis- 
sion (in  all  M.  Dumas's  plays  there  is  a  foreign  mission — no  one  has 
such  interest  in  the  diplomacy),  and  Teresa  thereupon  destioys  her- 
self, as  will  be  seen  in  a  note  a  httle  further  on. 

^  See  note  on  page  203 


DRAMA.  203 

among  which  was  a  kind  of  Blue-beard  story  of  a 
Queen  of  France,  who,  according  to  Brantome,  so 
tenait  la  d'ordinaire,  laquelle  fesant  le  guet  aux  pas- 
sants  et  ceux  qui  lui  revenaient  et  a  greaient  le  plus, 
de  quelque  sorte  de  gens  que  ce  fussent,  les  fesait  ap- 
peler  et  venir  a  soy  et  apres  avoir  tire  ce  qu'elle  en 
voulait  les  fesait  precipiter  du  haut  de  la  tour  en  bas 
en  I'eau,  et  les  fesait  noyer.  The  name  of  this  queen 
seems  a  matter  much  disputed,  but  Marguerite  de 
Bourgoyne,  wife  of  Louis  X.,  who,  together  with  her 
two  sisters,  was  convicted  of  practices  something  sim- 
ilar, furnishes  the  author  of  the  piece  with  his  heroine, 
and  the  plot  turns  on  her  intrigue  with  two  brothers, 
whose  parentage  she  was  ignorant  of,  but  who  prove 
to  be  her  own  sons,  by  an  adventurer  "  Buridan."  One 
of  these  sons  is  murdered  by  the  mother's  order,  an- 
other by  the  father's  contrivance — there  is  hardly  any 
crime  to  be  found  in  the  "  causes  celebres"  which  is 
not  ingeniously  crowded  into  the  five  acts  of  this 
drama.*     There  is  hardly  any  horrible  or  terrible  po- 

*  The  main  plot  (for  there  are  several  other  minor  intrigues)  of  the 
"  Tour  de  Nesle"  is  this.  There  are  two  brothers,  orphans  and 
ignorant  of  their  parents,  Philippe  Daulnay  and  Gaultier  Daulnay. 
Gaultier  Daulnay  is  in  the  queen's  guard,  and  is  beloved  by  the  queen. 
Philippe  Daulnay,  coming  to  see  him,  is  seduced  to  the  Tour  de  Nesle, 
and  after  having  partaken  of  the  queen's  revels,  is  murdered,  accord- 
ing to  her  usual  orders.  Buridan,  who  as  page  to  the  Due  de  Bur- 
goyne  had  formerly  been  the  lover  of  Marguerite  in  early  youth,  be- 
fore her  marriage,  and  at  her  suggestion  had  murdered  her  father, 
Robert  II.,  visits  Paris,  in  order  to  take  advantage  of  this  secret,  and 
finally  insists  on  being  made  prime  minister,  and  governing  France 
in  conjunction  with  the  queen.  Marguerite  apparently  consents,  but 
determines  to  contrive  his  death  ;  while  Buridan  also  begins  to  think 
her  death  necessary  for  the  security  of  his  fortunes.  They  make  a 
love-appointment  at  the  Tour  de  Nesle,  each  intending  that  it  should 
end  in  the  death  of  the  other.  Marguerite  posts  assassins  in  the 
chamber  through  which  Buridan  is  to  pass,  and  gives  them  orders  to 
despatch  the  first  man  who  enters.  Buridan  informs  Gaultier  Daul- 
nay of  his  rendezvous,  excites  his  jealousy,  and  gives  him  the  key 
that  will  admit  him  into  the  tower  m  his  (Buridan's)  place,  while  in 
the  mean  time  he  gives  the  captain  of  the  guard  an  order  in  the  king's 
own  hand  to  enter  the  Tour  de  Nesle  at  the  hour  when  he  expected 
Marguerite  and  Gaultier  would  be  there,  and  to  sj-ize  whomsoever, 
without  exception,  he  might  find,  as  perpetrators  of  the  horrid  mur- 
ders for  whicli  the  place  was  famous.  Hardly,  however,  has  Gaul- 
tier left  Buridan,  before  the  latter  learns  that  Philippe  Daulnay, 


204  DRAMA. 

sition  of  which  the  stage  affords  an  example,  into  which 
the  author  has  not  contrived  to  place  his  heroine  or 
heroes — there  are  some  events  (the  sudden  nomina- 
tion, for  instance,  of  Buridan  to  he  prime  minister)  too 
improbable  for  even  the  necessities  of  the  scene  to  jus- 
tify ;  but  there  are  no  flagrant  violations  of  history  such 
as  those  in  Marie  Tudor — nor  is  there  any  wanton  at- 
tempt to  interest  you  in  crime.  You  are  not  told  that 
you  should  feel  as  M.  V.  Hugo  would  have  told  you  that 
you  should  feel — the  deepest  interest  for  the  lady  who 
had  been  strangling  her  lovers  all  her  life,  because  she 
felt  some  compunction  at  having  accidentally  strangled 
her  son  at  last.  Your  feelings  are  allowed  to  run  on 
in  their  ordinary  course,  and  your  breast  is  dark  from 
every  gleam  of  pity  when  the  guard  leads  off  the  queen 
and  her  paramour,  caught  in  their  own  snares,  to  ex- 
ecution. 

If  you  choose  to  judge  the  Tour  de  Nesle  by  the 
ordinary  rules  of  criticism,  it  is  a  melo-dramatic  mon- 
strosity ;  but  if  you  think  that  to  seize,  to  excite,  to  sus- 
pend, to  transport  the  feelings  of  an  audience,  to  hush 
them  into  the  deepest  silence,  to  wring  out  from  them 
the  loudest  applause — to  keep  them  with  an  eye  eager, 
an  ear  awake,  an  attention  unflagged  from  the  first 
scene  to  the  last — if  you  think  that  to  do  this  is  to  be 
a  dramatist — that  to  have  done  this  is  to  have  written 
a  drama — bow  down  to  M.  Dumas,  or  M.  Gaillardet — 


already  slain  by  Marguerite,  and  Gaultier  Daulnay,  whose  death  he 
has  just  been  contriving,  are  the  offspring  of  his  early  loves  with  the 
queen.  He  hastens  then  to  the  tower  to  save  Gaultier,  and  entering 
the  chamber  by  the  window,  avoids  the  assassins.  But  he  only  cornes 
in  time  to  hear  his  son's  cries  under  their  hands  ;  and  as  Gaultier, 
covered  with  wounds,  totters  into  the  chamber  and  dies  at  the  feet  of 
his  parents,  the  king's  guards  enter.  The  captain  of  the  guard  ad- 
vancing— 

You  are  my  prisoners. 

Marg.  and  BuRi.    Your  prisoners ! 

Marg.    I — the  queen  ! 

BuRi.    I — the  prime  minister ! 

Capt.  of  the  Gctard.  There  are  here  neither  queen  nor  prime 
minister  ;  there  is  a  dead  body,  two  assassins,  and  an  order,  signed 
by  the  king's  hand,  to  arrest  this  night  whoever  I  should  find  in  the 
Tom  de  Nesle. 


DRAMA.  206 

to  the  author  of  the  Tour  de  Nesle,  whoever  he  be — 
that  man  is  a  dramatist,  the  piece  he  has  written  is  a 
drama.  And  yet,  powerful  as  this  play  is,  it  wants 
poesy  ;  there  are  no  glorious  passages,  no  magnificent 
situations, — written  in  prose,  its  prose  is  strong,  ner- 
vous, but  strictly  prosaic.  I  should  find  it  impossible 
to  sum  up  an  opinion  of  this  performance,  by  calling 
it  bad  or  good — Go,  reader,  to  see  it !  There  is  great 
art,  great  defects,  great  nature,  great  improbabilities, 
all  massed  and  mingled  up  together  in  the  rapid  rush 
of  terrible  things,  which  pour  upon  you,  press  upon 
you,  keep  you  fixed  to  your  seat,  breathless,  motion- 
less. And  then  a  pause  comes — the  piece  is  over — 
you  shake  your  head,  you  stretch  your  limbs,  you  still 
feel  shocked,  bewildered,  and  walk  home  as  if  awaked 
from  a  terrible  nightmare.  Such  is  the  effect  of  the 
«  Tour  de  Nesle." 

I  have  said  that  the  drear  and  distant  times  from 
which  this  tragedy  is  brought  forth  excuse  its  atroci- 
ties. These  atrocities  are  part  of  the  dark  shadows 
of  that  haunted  age.  The  crimes  of  Atreus,  the  pun- 
ishment of  Prometheus,  the  horrors  and  the  passions 
of  Medea  were  allowed  on  the  Greek  stage,  because 
they  also  were  sanctified  by  long  superstition.  But 
one  does  not  expect  a  Buridan  in  every  shopboy,  or  a 
Marguerite  in  every  sempstress.  The  general  colour- 
ing of  modern  days  is  too  pale  and  commonplace  for 
these  strange  startling  figures.  They  exist,  they  are 
in  nature,  but  they  are  not  in  theatrical  nature.  The 
individual  case  which  startles  you  in  the  newspaper 
is  not  the  case  to  bring  upon  the  stage.  There  the 
characters  of  a  time  should  be  in  keeping  with,  the  char- 
acter of  the  time. 

The  personages  you  can  fancy  in  the  dark  and  nar- 
row streets,  passing  by  the  gaunt  buttresses,  and  paus- 
ing under  the  dim  archways  of  ancient  Paris,  you 
cannot  fancy  (though  they  may  be  found)  strolling  in 
the  guingettes,  or  dancing  on  the  Boulevards  of  Paris 
at  the  present  day.  The  Lara  of  an  unknown  land, 
corsair,  captain,  whose  tall  shadow  shoots  along  the 
18 


206  DRAMA. 

wall  of  his  old  ancestral  castle,  is  not  the  kind  of  gen- 
lleman  whom  you  expect  to  shake  hands  with  at  a 
banker's  ball  ;*  nor  can  you  think  that  the  footman  who 
announced  you  at  the  door  has  got  a  dagger  in  one 
pocket,  and  a  bowl  of  poison  in  the  other.f 

M.  Dumas,  having  divined  the  costume  of  the  dark 
and  gloomy  times  of  Louis  X.,  and  the  gay  and  chival- 
ric  and  superstitious  times  of  Henry  III.,  appears  (to 
me  at  all  events)  to  have  mistaken  or  misrepresented 
that  of  his  own.  As  M.  V.  Hugo  claps  a  republican 
cap  on  the  sixteenth  century,  so  M.  Dumas  dresses 
up  the  nineteenth  century  in  a  livery  of  heroism, 
turned  up  with  assassination  and  incest.  He  parades 
before  you  a  parcel  of  doctors,  and  adventurers,  and 
fine  gentlemen,  all  scowling,  and  plotting,  and  folding 
their  arms.  The  stage  is  Burlington  Arcade,  on  an 
August  evening,  crowded  with  those  mysterious  shop- 
keepers, who  wear  moustaches  when  their  customers 
are  out  of  town,  and  fold  a  mantle  about  their  shoul- 
ders to  keep  out  the  heat,  and  look  at  every  lady  of 
Covent  Garden  saloon  as  if  they  expected  to  find  a 
nouvelle  Heloise.;): 

But  let  us  now  pass  from  the  authors  of  the  new 
drama  to  that  drama  itself. 


*  As  Antony. 

t  In  "  Teresa"  the  lady  rings  for  her  footman  : — 

Teresa.  Paulo,  when  we  left  Italy,  you  must  have  thought  that 
vou  would  fall  into  some  misfortune  you  would  not  survive  ? 

Paulo.    Yes. 

Ter.        And  against  such  a  misfortune  have  you  no  resource  ? 

Paulo.    Two. 

Ter.         What? 

Paulo.     This  poison  and  this  dagger  t 

X  Such  gentlemen  are  capital  characters  for  a  comedy ;  no  author 
need  seek  a  better ;  but  it  is  too  bad  to  give  them  as  heroes,  and  modela 
of  heroism,  in  sober  earnest 


DRAMA.  207 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  modem  French  drama  naturally  changed  from  the  ancient  one 
— The  person  you  meet  in  the  streets  of  Paris  not  dressed  as  he 
was  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV. — How  expect  the  drama  to  remain 
the  same — What  you  should  allow  for — What  you  should  expect. 

For  years  England  disputed  with  France,  and 
France  with  herself,  the  true  principles  of  the  dramatic 
art ;  for  there  were  some  to  contend  that,  though  the 
governments  and  the  feelings  of  mankind  are  for  ever 
changing,  the  rules  which  goveni  the  expression  of 
those  feelings  were  not  to  change. 

These  critics  would  have  declared  that  the  gorgeous 
and  kingly  verse  of  Virgil  ought  to  have  been  the  mo- 
del on  which  the  abrupt,  the  stern,  and  supernatural 
genius  of  Milton  should  have  framed  its  periods. 

They  would  have  said  that  the  spirit  of  the  bold  age 
which  solemnly  adjudged  a  monarch  to  the  death  in 
the  full  gaze  of  Europe  was  not  to  vary  in  its  style 
from  that  of  the  time  in  which  one  man  had  gathered 
to  himself  the  ancient  majesty  of  free  Rome. 

Is  the  person  you  meet  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
dressed  as  you  would  have  found  him  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  can  you  expect  the  stage  to  appear  in 
the  old  costume  ? 

When  a  rigid  order  reigned  over  the  arts,  it  reigned 
also  over  the  world  of  action ;  and  the  stage  was  only 
subject  to  the  same  spirit  which  regulated  real  life. 
Society  was  a  machine,  in  which  every  thing  had  a 
certain  place,  and  moved  in  a  certain  way,  by  a  certain 
law.  The  smallest  atom  had  its  appropriate  sphere, 
beyond  which  it  was  impossible  to  soar.  But  when 
men  rose  daily  to  the  highest  ranks  from  the  lowest, 
rapid  and  extraordinary  in  their  own  career,  they  soon 
lost  all  sympathy  with  the  stiff-jointed  transitions  of 


208  DRAMA. 

the  poet.  The  slow  proprieties  of  the  world  were 
broken  through.  What,  then,  were  these  proprieties 
on  the  stage  ?  The  events  which  had  created  a  new 
public  created  necessarily  a  new  theatre.  A  change 
in  the  one,  tardy  in  following,  was  still  sure  to  follow 
the  other.  The  movement  which  had  taken  place  in 
the  material  world  passed  to  the  intellectual — the  arts 
were  subjected  to  the  influences  which  had  remoulded 
society. 

A  perfectly  new  style  arose.  .  .  . 

Racine  over-purified  and  polished  his  language,  as 
Pope  too  symmetrically  modulated  ours.  In  England, 
the  steril  but  bold  and  hardy  genius  of  Gray  founded 
a  new,  a  more  daring  and  energetic  style  of  composi- 
tion ;  but  the  author  of  "  Ruin  seize  thee,  ruthless 
king !"  burst  from  the  chains  of  the  sing-song  heroic 
with  no  less  dignity  than  courage.  There  was  as 
much  elegance  as  force  in  the  rhythm  of  his  couplets, 
and  to  the  old  expressions,  and  to  the  rich  and  glow- 
ing epithets  which  he  revived  and  coined,  a  purity  was 
breathed  which  set  the  accusation  of  quaintness  or 
extravagance  at  defiance.  It  is  almost  curious  indeed 
to  find  in  Gray's  correspondence  with  Mr.  West  the 
trembling  foot  which  he  put  forward  to  new  regions, 
and  the  anxiety  which  he  showed  to  give  each  more 
daring  syllable  the  authority  of  a  forgotten  usage.  But 
Gray  lived  under  the  same  governinent,  in  the  same 
state  of  society  as  Pope.  No  vast  deluge  had  swept 
over  England  during  his  time,  destroying  one  set  of 
things,  quickening  and  producing  another.  The  parent 
of  our  modern  style,  it  was  rather  by  the  musings  over 
a  by-gone  day,  than  by  any  inspiration  drawn  from  what 
was  passing  around  him,  that  he  refreshed  and  invigo- 
rated his  language,  and  caught  a  tone  of  simplicity 
and  chivalry  which  was  not  that  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lived. 

In  France,  on  the  contrary,  though  the  stir  and  rush 
of  later  times  have  been  in  sympathy  with  the  stern  and 
active  genius  of  the  middle  ages,  it  has  been  the  feel- 
ings of  the  present  that  have  inspired  a  passion  for  the 


DRAMA.  209 

past,  and  not  a  study  of  the  past  that  has  breathed  its 
influence  over  the  present.  The  literature  of  the  mo- 
ment is  native  to  the  moment. 

But  the  different  English  articles  that  I  have  seen 
on  the  state  of  the  French  drama  have  been  written 
without  notice  of  the  circumstances  which  have  pro- 
duced its  peculiarities ;  and  while  the  absurdities  and 
the  atrocities  of  the  French  dramatists  have  been  ridi 
culed  and  condemned,  their  merits  have  not  been  seen 
nor  their  faults  accounted  for.  The  difficulty  is  in 
separating  what  is  peculiar  to  the  author  himself  from 
the  time  and  the  public  for  which  he  writes. 

I  don't  blame  an  author  for  suiting  himself  to  the 
period  and  to  the  people  he  addresses  ;  he  must  be 
understood  by  his  audience  ;  but  then  he  should  ele- 
vate his  audience.  If  he  live  in  a  time  when  exaggera- 
tion is  to  be  expected,  you  hope  to  see  that  exaggera- 
tion softened  by  his  skill  and  ennobled  by  his  art. 
You  hope  to  see  him  true  to  nature,  though  you  know 
it  must  be  the  nature  of  his  particular  period.  You 
hope  to  see  him  keeping  to  the  ancient  costume  of  his- 
tory, though  you  know  that  that  costume  will  be  col- 
oured by  the  spirit  of  a  new  time.  You  hope  to  see 
him  seize  and  concentrate  the  vaguer  sentiments  that 
are  abroad,  and  deduce  from  them  some  kind  of  order 
which  will  give  a  character  to  his  epoch.  You  hope 
to  see  him  give  force  and  clearness,  rather  than  add 
pomp  and  paradox  to  what  he  finds.  This  you  hope  ; 
and  above  all,  you  hope  that  he  will  awake  and  excite 
the  better  feelings,  and  make  you  forget  or  loathe  the 
more  mean  and  pernicious  passions  of  your  soul. 

How  has  the  modern  French  dramatists  satisfied 
the  hopes  and  the  expectations  that  we  had  a  right  to 
form? 

18* 


210  DRAMA. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

How  far  the  horrid  subjects  chosen  for  the  French  stage  are  allow- 
able, and  in  what  their  oflFence  consists. 

The  first  consideration  which  opens  upon  us  in 
relation  with  the  present  French  drama  is,  the  horrid 
nature  of  its  subjects,  and  the  manner  in  which  those 
subjects  are  handled  and  introduced. 

1  shall  now,  therefore,  proceed  to  inquire.  How  far 
those  subjects  are  in  themselves  allowable,  or  how 
much  they  depend  on  the  manner  in  which  they  are 
treated. 

A  subject  is  not  allowable  on  the  stage  either  be- 
cause it  offends  the  rules  of  art,  or  because  it  oifends 
the  still  more  important  rules  of  morality. 

Now,  I  say  here,  as  I  said  in  speaking  of  the  Tour 
de  Nesle,  no  subject,  as  it  appears  to  me,  offends  the 
rules  of  art  which  is  in  harmony  with  the  character, 
or  with  our  general  ideas  of  the  character,  of  the  time 
in  which  it  is  introduced.  The  offence  against  the 
rules  of  art  in  bringing  "  bloody  Queen  Mary"  on  the 
stage  is  in  not  making  "  bloody  Queen  Mary"  bloody 
enough.  The  offence  against  the  rules  of  art  in 
bringing  Darlington  on  the  stage  is  in  making  Darling- 
ton a  much  greater  political  profligate  than  he  could 
possibly  have  been. 

I  do  not,  then,  I  confess,  join  in  the  usual  cant 
which  denounces  as  an  abomination  the  mere  bringing 
Lucrece  Borgia  and  Marguerite  of  Burgoyne  on  the 
stage.  I  see  no  reason,  as  a  question  of  art,  why  any 
person,  why  any  passion,  why  any  subject  should  be 
prohibited  the  author  that  his  audience  does  not  forbid ; 
but  I  do  see  every  reason,  as  a  question  of  art,  why 
the  persons  he  creates  should  be  in  the  image  of  the 


DRAMA.  211 

times  in  which  he  creates  them — why  the  persons,  for 
whom  he  is  indebted  to  history,  should  stand  forth  in 
their  historical  characters — why  the  countries  of  which 
he  speaks  should  be  spoken  of  with  a  knowledge  of 
their  manners — why  the  events  that  take  place  in  the 
drama  should  not  be  wholly  unnatural  in  their  com- 
parison with  the  events  of  real  life. 

It  is  in  these,  the  finer  parts  of  their  pursuit,  that 
the  present  dramatic  writers  of  France  are  universally 
defective.  If  M.  V.  Hugo  and  M.  Dumas  were  school- 
boys, and  told  to  write  about  English  historj^  in  the 
time  of  Marie  Tudor,  or  English  manners  and  laws  at 
the  present  time,  they  would  have  been  whipped  for 
the  ridiculous  faults  that  they  have  both  committed. 
These  are  not  faults  of  genius  ;  they  are  purely  and 
entirely  faults  of  negligence  or  ignorance. 

I  turn,  then,  from  this  first  inquiry  to  the  second — 
viz.  how  far  these  subjects  offend,  what  every  drama- 
tist is  most  bound  to  protect,  the  laws  and  the  interests 
of  morality.  King  Lear  is  a  horrid  subject — Macbeth 
is  a  horrid  subject.  Do  they  offend  the  morals  of  an 
audience?  It  is  of  the  rules  of  morality  as  of  the 
rules  of  art :  it  is  not  the  horrid  nature  of  a  subject 
that  offends  either  the  one  or  the  other ;  it  is  in  the 
manner  in  which  that  subject  is  treated  that  its  beauty 
as  a  piece  of  composition,  or  its  value  as  a  lesson  of 
virtue,  depends.  The  immorality  of  M.  V.  Hugo  and 
of  M.  Dumas  is,  not  in  having  brought  Marion  de 
Lorme  and  Antony  upon  the  stage,  but  in  affecting  to 
breathe  a  mawkish  interest  over  the  infamy  of  the 
prostitute,  and  attaching  a  romantic  heroism  to  the 
adulterous  seducer  of  female  honour.  The  inverted 
philosophy  of  M.  Hugo  appears  to  me,  as  I  have  frankly 
said,  a  kind  of  unphilosophic  madness,  with  which 
I  have  no  sympathy,  for  which  I  think  there  is  no  ex- 
cuse ;  and  what  I  say  of  the  intentional  follies  of 
M.  V.  Hugo,  I  say  of  the  wild  and  whining  vice  of 
M.  Dumas. 

And  why  is  this  ?  Why,  M.  Dumas,  instead  of  at- 
tempting to  breathe  a  false  poesy  into  the  grovelling 


212  DRAMA. 

amours  of  a  Parisian  salon,  or  holding  up  for  imita- 
tion a  political  profligacy — which,  thank  God,  is  yet 
mitrue — in  the  public  men,  and  the  parliament  of 
Great  Britain, — why  have  you  sought  for  no  truer,  no 
better,  no  brighter  models  for  the  emulation  of  those 
ardent  youths  who  admire  your  talent  and  worship 
your  career  ?  Are  there  no  characters  you  can  take 
from  the  heroes  of  July,  or  the  enthusiasts  of  June  ? 
Are  there  no  models  of  female  heroism  and  devotion 
you  can  draw  from  the  revolution  of  1789,  and  the 
restoration  of  1815?  Have  Madame  Roland  and  Ma- 
dame Lavalette  lived  in  vain  ?  Have  you  had  no  men 
in  France  who  have  been  disinterested  and  brave  ? 
Have  you  had  no  women  in  France  who  have  been 
noble  and  virtuous  ?  Must  you  fill  your  stage  with 
sickly-faced  apothecaries  in  the  frontispiece  attitude 
of  Lord  Byron,  and  fourth-rate  fine  ladies  vulgarly 
imitating  the  vices  and  the  ton  of  Mde.  de  Mirepoix  1 
Why  should  you  invent  imaginary  personages  in  the 
representation  of  your  age  who  are  exceptions  to  your 
age  ?  Why  should  you  make  as  the  heroes  and  he- 
roines of  your  drama  the  creatures  whom  it  would 
sicken  you  to  meet  in  the  commerce  of  daily  life  ? 

And  you,  M.  V.  Hugo  ! — you,  the  promise  of  whose 
youth  was  so  generous — in  whose  odes  breathed  a 
spirit  no  less  remarkable  for  its  purity  than  its  poesy 
— you,  who  seemed  by  instinct  to  have  caught  the 
chivalry  and  the  grace  of  the  old  knightly  time,  with 
the  popular  language  that  goes  to  the  heart  of  the  pres- 
ent day — have  you  no  better  mode  of  elevating  your 
countrywomen  than  by  teaching  them  to  be  good  mo- 
thers by  the  example  of  Lucrece  Borgia,  or  devoted 
mistresses  by  the  example  of  Marion  de  Lorme  ? 
What !  have  you  found  no  cleverer  mode  of  elevating 
the  people  in  their  own  esteem  than  by  telling  every 
miwashed  apprentice  that  a  countess  wishes  to  marry 
him — not  because  he  is  a  good  man,  and  a  steady  ap- 
prentice— Oh,  no !  simply  because  he  is  an  appren- 
tice, because  he  is  a  working  man  ? 

Is  not  this  stuff!    Is  not  this  prostrate  and  dust-lick- 


DRAMA.  213 

ing  flattery  !  Can  you  talk  of  the  ringing  of  a  courtier 
to  his  monarch,  when  you  bow  thus  slavishly  before 
the  meanest  of  your  mob  1  Nor  is  my  praise  or  cen- 
sure indiflerent  to  you — if  I,  a  foreigner,  far  away  from 
all  your  petty  jealousies  and  rival  cliques — if  I,  who 
not  even  as  a  man  of  letters,  a  title  to  which  I  have 
not  the  honour  to  pretend — if  I,  who  neither  as  a  coun- 
tryman, nor  even  as  a  literary  man,  can  possibly  have 
any  rivalry  with  you — if  I,  who  honour  your  talents, 
love  your  country,  and  approve  of  many  of  your  prin- 
ciples— if  I,  who,  if  any  wish  were  stirring  in  my 
mind,  can  only  have  the  wish  to  propitiate  your  friends, 
to  obtain  and  enjoy  the  pleasure  and  honour  of  your 
acquaintance — if  I  have  allowed  words  to  be  wrung 
out  from  me,  words  of  reproach,  strong  words,  words 
expressive  of  more  than  my  regret  at  the  manner  in 
which  you  have  allowed  ignorance,  and  prejudice,  and 
adulation,  and  negligence,  and  indifference,  and  immo- 
rality to  obscure  and  to  tarnish  the  lustre  of  talents  for 
which  such  a  country,  and  such  a  time,  as  that  in 
which  you  live,  opened  so  great,  and  so  noble,  and  so 
heart-cheering  a  path  to  fame — if  I  have  had  language 
such  as  that  which  I  have  used,  unwillingly,  I  declare, 
extorted  from  me — is  it  not  possible,  that  far  away 
from  that  feeble  chorus  of  easily-enchanted  friends, 
who,  like  the  bird  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  pass  their 
lives  in  repeating  "  there  is  but  one  poesy,  and  Dumas 
and  Victor  Hugo  are  its  true  prophets  !" — is  it  not  pos- 
sible, I  say,  that,  far  away  from  these  sicklied  sounds, 
there  is  an  opinion  rising,  gathering,  swelling — an 
opinion  which  shall  be  the  opinion  of  Europe,  the  opin- 
ion of  posterity — an  opinion  which  might  have  raised 
you  in  a  new  time  to  such  pedestals  as  those  of  the 
old  time  occupy — an  opinion  which  shall  break  as 
busts  of  clay  what  you  might  have  made  statues  of 
stone  and  of  marble — an  opinion  v/hich  shall  leave 
you  the  lions  of  a  drawing-room,  and  which  might 
have  made  you  the  landmarks  of  an  epoch  t 

But  I  pass  from  this.     And  now,  having  expressed 
an  opinion  in  respect  to  the  present  French  drama. 


214  DRAMA. 

let  me  come  to  a  yet  more  interesting  consideration, 
and  inquire  what  the  present  French  drama  proves  in 
respect  to  the  present  French  public. 

Does  it  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  if  greater 
atrocities  than  formerly  were  exhibited  on  the  French 
stage,  the  French  people  would  be  more  atrocious  ? 
Doee  it  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  because  there 
is  less  delicacy  than  formerly  used  in  mentioning, 
and  less  ceremony  than  formerly  used  in  manifesting, 
on  the  stage  all  the  possible  circumstances  connected 
with  adultery  and  seduction,  there  are,  really  more 
cases  of  adultery  and  seduction  ? 

At  first  sight  there  is,  I  admit,  a  strong  coincidence 
between  the  number  of  murders,  the  number  of  rapes, 
the  number  of  suicides,  the  number  of  natural  children 
in  France,  and  various  scenes  which  are  represented 
on  the  stage.  But  the  connection  is  not  so  easily  es- 
tablished, nor  so  easily  traced,  as  we  may  at  once  be 
induced  to  imagine ;  for  the  representations  of  the 
stage  are  far  less  influenced  by  the  morals  of  a  people 
than  by  their  manners. 

A  refined  audience  will  do  many  things  that  it  will 
not  bear  to  see  represented  ;  a  vulgar  audience  will  see 
a  great  many  things  represented  that  it  would  not  do. 

The  people  of  Athens,  who  were  a  dissolute  people, 
would  have  been  shocked  at  the  spectacles  of  the  Lace- 
daemonian people,  Avho  were  a  sober  people. 

The  courtier  of  Louis  XV.,  who  would  have  shud- 
dered at  poor  Mademoiselle  Angele's  being  brought  to 
bed  upon  the  stage,  would  have  been  far  more  likely 
to  seduce  her  than  the  bourgeois  of  Louis  Philippe, 
who  smiles  in  very  decent  complacency  at  this  inter- 
esting spectacle.  The  English,  who  tolerated  all  the 
stabbings  and  the  poison-takings  of  Shakspcare  on  their 
stage,  committed  hardly  any  crimes  during  the  fervour 
of  that  civil  war  which  let  loose  all  the  political  and 
religious  passions  of  two  hostile  parties.  The  French 
would  have  been  horror-struck  at  a  drop  of  blood  the- 
atrically spilt  at  the  moment  that  they  were  sending 
fifty  of  their  fellow-citizens  every  day  to  the  guillotine 


DRAMA.  215 

We  should  be  the  more  cautious  in  forming  wrong 
and  hasty  conclusions  upon  this  subject,  since  it  was 
from  conclusions  exactly  similar  that  the  French  did 
us  for  many  years  the  honour  to  very  seriously  believe 
that  we  were  little  better  than  a  set  of  barbarians, 
whose  nature,  as  Fielding  says,  rendered  acts  of  blood 
and  murdePs  duels  and  assassinations,  a  sort  of  neces- 
sary amusement. 

But  what  renders  it  more  clear  than  any  thing  which 
I  might  yet  continue  to  say,  that  the  scenes  of  the 
present  French  stage  do  not  prove  a  great  increase  of 
atrocious  crimes  in  real  life,  is — the  fact,  which  every 
public  document  gives  us,  that  crimes  of  this  nature, 
in  France,  are  very  much  on  the  decrease.* 

But,  indeed,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said, 
it  is  not  in  their  subjects  themselves  that  the  great  dif- 
ference between  the  old  and  the  new  drama  exists. 
We  shall  find,  on  referring  to  the  old  and  classic  French 
theatre,  that  at  times  it  represented  the  same  things, 
or  things  even  more  shocking  than  any  represented 
now — the  great  difference  being  in  the  manner — the 
more  delicate  and  less  shocking  manner  in  which  these 
things  were  represented.  What  was  the  subject  of 
Phsedre  and  of  (Edipe,  that  the  chaste  imagination  of 
the  critic  should  repudiate  the  loves  where,  by-the- 
way  the  incest  is  unintentional,  of  Queen  Marguerite 
and  her  sons  ?  "  Our  tragedy,"  says  Rousseau,  "  pre- 
sents us  with  such  monstrous  characters,  that  neither 
is  the  example  of  their  vices  contagious,  nor  that  of 
their  virtues  instructive."!  This  is  what  Rousseau  said 
of  the  stage  in  his  time,  and  so  far  I  agree  with  Rous- 
seau, that  the  exhibition  of  those  terrible  passions 
which  seldom  visit  us  are  less  likely  to  have  an  influ- 
ence upon  our  character,  because  they  enter  less  into 
the  relations  of  our  life,  than  others  of  a  more  ordinary 
and  household  nature.     But  mark !  The  very  subjects 

*  There  are  some  curious  documents  that  prove  how  long  even  sui- 
cides have  been  prevalent  among  the  French  people,  contrary  to  th« 
vulgar  belief. 

t  Rousseau  Lettre  a  D'Alembert. 


216  DRAMA. 

which  Rousseau  condemns,  because  they  do  not  affect 
human  actions,  are  those  very  subjects  which  modern 
critics  have  condemned  with  the  greatest  fury,  as  most 
likely  to  affect  national  morals. 

From  what  we  see  of  the  French  stage,  and  what 
succeeds  on  the  French  stage,  we  are  fairly  justified 
in  saying  that  the  audience  has  become  less  refined 
than  formerly,  but  there  is  nothing  that  can  induce  us 
to  say  that  it  is  more  immoral ;  in  fact,  the  same  causes 
that  have  given  more  energy  and  life  to  history  have 
given  more  force,  and  extravagance,  and  coarseness  to 
the  stage.  The  same  mass  that  go  to  history  for  in- 
formation go  to  the  theatre  for  amusement ;  but  to  one 
they  go  singly,  to  the  other  collectively.  The  histo- 
rian speaks  to  each,  the  dramatist  speaks  to  all.* 

"There  are  a  thousand  images  of  the  grotesque, 
and  only  one  of  the  beautiful,"  says  an  author  1  have 
largely  quoted  from.f 

The  French  were  ever  a  nation  devoted  to  effect. 
The  ancient  courtier  was  satisfied  with  the  painter 
who  drew  a  god  in  the  attitude  of  a  dancing-master  ; 
and  the  modern  mob  admire  the  author  whose  hero  is 
writhed  into  the  grotesque  contortions  of  a  devil.  The 
old  drama  was  calculated  for  effect — the  new  drama  is 


*  The  same  man  who  is  merely  animated  and  picturesque  in  con- 
versation is  apt  to  become  bombastic  and  extravagant  before  a  popu- 
lar assembly. 

t  M.  Victor  Hugo  says  this,  when  he  prefers  the  first  to  the  last ; 
I.  e.  the  grotesque  to  the  beautiful.  The  beautiful — regular,  chaste, 
symmetrical  in  its  proportions,  growing  into  magnificence  as  you 
gaze  upon  it,  rather  than  startling  you  into  admiration  at  a  first 
g;lance— the  beautiful,  such  as  the  classic  and  dreamy  days  of  an- 
tiquity have  bequeathed  it  to  us,  and  which  always  wanted  for  its 
admiration  a  quiet  and  a  repose  of  disposition  ill  suited  to  the  artificial 
and  ostentatious  character  of  the  French — the  beautiful  certainly  is 
little  calculated  for  the  restless,  agitated,  adventurous,  and  vulgar 
crowd,  that  expects  to  be  startled  at  once,  and  cannot  afford  the  time 
to  have  its  feelings  gradually  and  quietly  developed. 

The  unity  of  the  beautiful  is  the  consequence  of  its  perfection; 
but  the  round  and  graceful  dome  of  a  Greek  temple,  the  full  image 
of  which  swells  out,  as  it  were,  over  your  mind  while  you  examine 
it,  neither  surprises  nor  arrests  your  attention  like  the  thousand  and 
one  figures  of  a  Gothic  cathedral,  which  strike  you  as  much  by  their 
variety  as  their  horror. 


DRAMA.  217 

calculated  for  effect.     The  old  drama  was  calculated 

for  effect  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV the  new  drama 

is  calculated  for  effect  in  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe. 
The  writer,  as  I  began  by  saying,  is  not  to  blame  lUf 
writing  differently  to  a  different  audience — the  audience 
is  not  to  blame,  because,  derived  from  different  habits, 
different  pursuits,  different  educations,  it  has  different 
feelings.  I  do  not  blame  the  audience,  then,  for  being 
less  refined  in  its  taste  ;  I  do  not  even  blame  the  writer 
for  being  violent  in  the  energy  and  ostentatious  in  the 
colouring  of  his  piece.  The  milliner  on  Ludgate-hill 
does  not  make  up  the  same  goods  for  her  customers 
as  the  milliner  near  Berkeley-square.  I  blame  the 
dramatic  author  in  France,  not  for  the  materials  he 
uses,  but — I  return  to  the  accusation — for  the  use  he 
makes  of  those  materials.  I  blame  him,  because  with 
the  same  energy  of  action,  with  the  same  Acridity  of 
colouring,  he  might  be  moral  and  magnificent  where  he 
is  immoral  and  extravagant ;  he  might  elevate  his  au- 
dience where  he  abases  it ;  he  might  instruct  his  audi- 
ence where  he  misleads  it.  I  blame  him  for  saying, 
that,  "  as  the  political  revolution  of  1789  must  have 
had  its  scaffolds,  so  the  literary  revolution  of  the  pres- 
ent day  must  have  its  nightmares."*  I  blame  him  for 
saying  this,  because  I  believe  that  the  one  was  no  more 
necessary  to  public  liberty  than  the  other  to  dramatic 
excellence. 

But  do  we  not  see  here,  and  in  all  I  have  just  been 
saying,  the  effects  of  that  diffusion  of  property  of  which 
I  spoke  before  ?  Do  we  not  see  that  it  is  this  which  has 
removed  the  critics  who  governed  the  state  from  the 
stage  ?  Do  we  not  see  that  it  is  this  which  has  made 
the  persons  to  please,  who  were  formerly  a  small  set, 
more  easily  shocked  by  errors  than  struck  by  beauties, 
a  great  crowd,  composed  of  that  class  who  in  every 
country  are  most  struck  by  the  marvellous,  and  most 
inclined  to  mistake  the  extraordinary  for  the  sublime  t 
Do  we  not  see  that  it  is  this  which  has  taken  away  the 
few  who  criticised  to  leave  the  many  who  applaud  ? 
*  M.  Victor  Hugfo. 


218  DKAMA. 

When  the  energy  which  had  been  born  of  a  new 
epoch,  and  the  equality  which  was  based,  not  merely 
(»K  t.}ie  statute,  but  on  the  soil — when  that  energy  and 
Hiat  equality  were  drawn  into  the  armies  of  the  empire, 
those  armies,  whatever  the  character  of  their  chief, 
were  inspired  by  popular  passions,  and  formed  and  con- 
ducted upon  popular  principles.  It  is  the  passions  and 
the  principles  which  animated  the  armies  of  France 
that  animate  her  drama — the  same  persons  who  are  to 
have  the  honours  and  enjoyments  of  the  one  that  had 
the  honours  and  the  dangers  of  the  other.  You  must 
look  at  every  thing  in  modern  France  with  the  recol- 
lection, that  it  is  for  no  polished  or  privileged  class, 
but  for  an  immense  plebeian  public.  You  must  look 
at  every  thing  in  modern  France  with  the  remembrance 
that  almost  every  Frenchman  has  some  interest  in  the 
property  of  France,  and  expects  to  have  some  influence 
in  her  honours,  emoluments,  and  amusements. 

"  But  how  is  this  ?"  I  can  fancy  my  reader  saying ; 
"you  have  shown  us  the  advantages  that  the  division 
of  property  has  had  upon  one  branch  of  literature,  and 
now  you  point  out  to  us  the  defects  as  well  as  the 
beauties — the  extravagance  as  well  as  the  force  that 
it  has  given  to  another !  I  thought,  at  all  events,  when 
you  entered  upon  the  subject,  that  you  had  some  start- 
ling theory  to  develop,  and  that  you  would  prove  that 
this  division  of  property  produced  every  evil  or  every 
good."  This  is  not  what  I  believe ;  and,  indeed,  my 
object  was  to  show  not  so  much  how  this  great  and  per- 
vading cause  had  affected  the  modern  French  litera- 
ture as  to  show  that  it  had  affected  that  literature  ;  for 
if  it  has  affected  the  literature,  it  has  still  more  deeply 
affected  the  philosophy,  the  religion,  the  society,  the 
agriculture,  the  industry,  the  government  of  France  ; 
and  it  is  only  when  I  have  traced  it  through  all  these, 
and  balanced  its  various  advantages  and  disadvantages 
together,  that  I  can  be  justified  in  giving  an  opinion 
upon  one  of  the  most  important  problems  that  modern 
society  has  to  solve. 

I  wished  to  have  shown  in  this  book  the  literature  of 


DRAMA.  219 

the  day  in  all  its  branches — ^history,  the  drama,  and 
lighter  works.  I  wished  to  have  shown  here,  as  some 
day  I  yet  hope  to  show,  in  the  journalism,  in  the  phi- 
losophy, in  the  religion  of  France,  in  ail  these  produc- 
tions of  human  intellect,  in  all  these  manifestations  of 
existing  opinions,  and  in  all  the  changes  which  each 
has  undergone,  that  great  change — the  change  in  the 
distribution  of  property.  I  wished  to  have  shown  how 
this  revolution  has  been  the  real  revolution  in  France — 
not  in  destroying,  but  in  blending  itself  with  the  old 
character,  the  old  history,  and  the  old  influences  of  the 
French  people — and  it  is  on  this  union,  it  is  on  this 
amalgamation  of  property  and  opinion — of  what  is 
moral  and  material  in  a  country — that  its  present  re- 
poses and  its  future  depends. 

A  vast  field  opens  before  me ;  a  field  in  which  I  see 
institutions  that  we  may  compare  with  our  own,  and 
which  we  can  compare  with  advantage,  when  we  have 
seen  how  they  are  blended,  with  a  character,  and  a 
history,  and  influences,  and  a  state  of  property,  en- 
tirely dissimilar  from  ours. 

I  do  not,  then,  bid  farewell  to  you,  gentle  reader.  I 
hope  one  day  to  resume  my  task ;  and  let  me  venture 
to  promise,  if  I  do  pursue  the  subject  I  have  before  me, 
you  will  find  at  every  page  new  proofs  of  that  truth 
which,  borrowing  the  words  of  the  great  Roman  states- 
man, I  took  for  the  commencement  of  this  book,  and 
now  take  for  its  conclusion — "Est  admirabilis  QUiE- 

DAM  CONTINUATIO  SERIESQUE  RERUM,  UT  ALIA  EX  ALIA 
NEXA  ET  OMNES  INTER  SE  APT^,  COLLIGAT^EQUE  VI- 
DEANTUR. 

K2 


APPENDIX 


Vol.  II.  page  13. 

These  reports  are  too  long  to  find  their  room  in  the 
appendix ;  bat  they  are  most  interesting  to  any  one 
wishing  to  know  the  state  of  parties  at  that  time  in 
France,  and  the  causes  which,  gradually  developing 
themselves,  produced  the  revolution  of  July.  They  are 
to  be  found  in  the  History  of  the  Restoration,  to  which 
I  have  once  or  twice  referred ;  a  book  very  unequally 
written,  and  far  too  long  for  the  matter  it  contains,  but 
still  presenting,  in  a  collected  form,  more  information 
of  the  time  it  treats  of  than  can  elsewhere  be  met  with. 
M.  Lacretelle's  work  is  also  worth  attending  to. 

Vol  II.  page  29. 

The  address  first  expressed  the  consent  of  the  Cham- 
ber to  the  views  taken  by  his  majesty  relative  to  the 
negotiations  that  were  opened  for  the  reconciliation  of 
the  princes  of  the  House  of  Braganza ;  the  commission 
expressed  the  wish  that  a  termination  should  be  put  to 
the  evils  under  which  Portugal  was  groaning. 

"  Sans  porter  atteinte  au  principe  sacre  de  la  l^gitimite, 
inviolable  pour  les  rois  non  moins  que  pour  les  peuples. 

"  Cependant,  sire,  au  milieu  des  sentimens  unanimes 
de  respect  et  d'affection  done  votre  peuple  vous  entoure, 
il  se  manifeste  dans  les  esprits  une  vive  inquietude  qui 
trouble  la  securite  dont  la  France  avait  commence  a 
jouir,  altere  les  sources  de  sa  prosperite,  et  pourrait,  si 
elle  se  prolongeait,  devenir  funeste  a  son  repos.  Notre 
conscience,  notre  honneur,  la  fidelite  que  nous  vous 
avons  juree,  et  que  nous  vous  garderons  toujours,  nous 
imposent  le  devoir  de  vous  en  devoiler  la  cause.  La 
19* 


222  APPENDIX. 

charte  que  nous  devons  a  la  sagesse  de  votre  auguste 
predecesseur,  et  dont  votre  majeste  a  la  ferme  volonte 
de  consolider  le  bienfait,  consacre  comme  un  droit  I'-in- 
tervention  du  pays  dans  la  deliberation  des  interets 
publics. 

"  Cette  intervention  devait  etre,  elle  est,  en  efFet  indi- 
recte,  sagement  mesuree,  circonscrite  dans  des  limites 
exactement  tracees,  et  que  nous  ne  souffrirons  jamais 
que  Ton  ose  tenter  de  franchir ;  mais  elle  est  positive 
dans  son  resultat,  car  elle  fait  du  concours  permanent 
des  vues  politiques  de  votre  gouvernement  avec  les 
voeux  de  votre  peuple,  la  condition  indispensable  de  la 
marche  reguliere  des  affaires  publiques.  Sire,  notre 
loyaute,  notre  devouement,  nous  condamnent  a  vous  dire 
que  ce  concours  n'existe  pas.  Une  defiance  injuste  des 
entimens  et  de  la  raison  de  la  France  est  aujourd'hui  la 
pensee  fondamentale  de  Fadministration  :  votre  peuple 
en  afflige  parcequ'elle  est  injurieuse  pour  lui,  il  s'en 
inquiete  parcequ'elle  est  menacante  pour  ses  libertes. 
Cette  defiance  ne  saurait  approcner  de  votre  noble  coeur. 
Non,  sire,  la  France  ne  veut  pas  plus  de  I'anarchie  que 
vous  ne  voulez  du  despotisme  ;  elle  est  digne  que  vous 
ayez  foi  dans  sa  loyaute  comme  elle  a  foi  dans  vos  pro- 
messes.  Entre  ceux,  qui  meconnaissent  une  nation  si 
calme,  si  fidele,  et  nous  qui,  avec  une  conviction  pro- 
fonde,  venons  deposer  dans  votre  sein  les  douleur  de 
tout  un  peuple  jaloux  de  I'estime  et  de  la  confiance  de 
son  roi,  que  la  haute  sagesse  de  votre  majeste  prononce  ! 
Ses  royales  prerogatives  ont  place  dans  ses  mains  les 
moyens  d'assurer  entre  les  pouvoirs  de  I'etat  cette  har- 
monic constitutionelle,  premiere  et  necessaire  condition 
de  la  force  du  trone  et  de  la  grandeur  de  la  France." 

Vol  IL  page  72. 

THE    CONSTITUTIONAL    CHARTA    OF    FRANCE. 

As  given  June  4th,  1814,  As  accepted  Aug.  9th, 
by  Louis  XVIII.,  born  King  1830,  by  Louis  Philippe  L, 
by  the  grace  of  God.  elected  King  by  the  choice 

of  the  nation. 

Article  L 

All  Frenchmen  are  equal  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  what- 
soever be  their  titles  or  ranks. 


APPENDIX.  223 

II. 

They  are  to  contribute  indiscriminately,  according  to 
their  several  fortunes,  to  the  support  of  the  state. 

III. 

They  are  all  equally  admissible  to  all  civil  and  mili- 
tary employments. 

IV. 
Their  individual  liberty  is  equally  assured;  no  one 
can  be  prosecuted  or  arrested  but  in  cases  provided  for 
by  the  law,  and  according  to  its  prescribed  forms. 

V. 

Every  person  may  with  equal  liberty  profess  his  re- 
ligion, and  obtain  for  his  creed  the  same  protection. 

VI. 

Nevertheless,  the  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Roman  re- 
ligion is  the  established  religion  of  the  state. — Sup- 
pressed. 

VII.  VI. 

The  mmisters  of  the  The  ministers  of  the 
Catholic,  Apostolic,  and  Catholic,  Apostolic,  and 
Roman  religion,  and  those  Roman  religion,  as  pro- 
of other  Christian  sects,  fessed  by  the  bulk  of  the 
may  alone  receive  salaries  French  nation,  and  those 
from  the  royal  treasury.  of  other  Christian  sects, 
may  alone  receive  salaries 
from  the  public  treasury. 

VIII.  VII. 

Frenchmen     have    the  Frenchmen     have     the 

right    to   publish    and    to  right  to  publish  or  cause 

cause  to  be  printed  their  to  be  printed  their  opin- 

opinions,    conformable   to  ions,   conformable  to   the 

the  laws  enacted  for  the  laws.      The    censor    can 

suppression  of  any  abuse  never  be  re-estabUshed. 
of  the  said  liberty. 

IX. 

All  property  is  inviolable,  without  any  exception  for 
that  which  is  termed  national,  the  law  knowing  no  dis- 
tinction between  them. 


224 


APPENDIX. 


X. 

The  state  can  demand  the  sacrnlce  of  a  property 
legally  proved  to  be  for  the  public  weal,  but  with  a  pre- 
vious iiideniniiication. 

XI. 

All  inquiry  as  to  opinions  and  votes  previous  to  the 
restoration  is  forbidden ;  also  all  judicial  pursuits  for 
the  same  to  drop. 

XII. 

The  conscription  is  abolished ;  the  recruiting  for  the 
army  and  navy  is  provided  for  by  law. 

XIII. 

The  King's  person  is  inviolable  and  sacred  ;  his 
ministers  are  responsible.  The  King  alone  is  invested 
with  the  executive  power. 


XIV. 

The  King  is  the  head  of 
the  state ;  he  commands 
the  forces  of  the  land  and 
the  forces  of  the  sea,  de- 
clares war,  forms  treaties 
of  peace,  of  alliance,  and 
of  commerce ;  appoints  to 
all  offices  of  public  admin- 
istration, and  frames  all 
rules  and  regulations  for 
the  just  enforcement  of 
the  laws  and  the  security 
of  the  state. 

XV. 

The  legislative  authority 
to  be  jointly  administered 
by  the  King,  the  Chamber 
of  Peers,  and  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  of  the  depart- 
ments. 

XVI. 
The  King  proposes  the 
law. 


XIII. 

The  King  is,  &c.  for  the 
just  enforcement  of  the 
laws,  without  ever  be- 
ing able  to  put  aside  the 
laws  themselves,  or  sus- 
pend their  execution.  No 
foreign  troops  shall  ever 
be  admitted  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  state  but  by 
virtue  of  an  especial  law. 


XIV. 

The  same,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  word  de- 
partments. 


XV. 

The  proposing  of  laws 
belongs  to  the  King,  to  the 


APPENDIX.  226 

XVII.  Chamber  of  Peers,  and  to 

The  proposition  of  the    the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
law  is  submitted,  with  the     Nevertheless,     all     taxes 
consent  of  the  King,  to  the     ought  to  be  first  voted  by 
Chamber  of  Peers  or  to    ^^^  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
that  of  the  Deputies,  with 
the  exception  of  the  taxes, 
which    ought   first   to   be 
submitted  to  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies. 

XVIII. 

Every  law  ought  to  be  freely  discussed  and  voted  by 
the  majority  of  both  the  Chambers. 

XIX. 

The  Chambers  have  the  right  to  request  the  King  to 
propose  a  law  for  any  object,  and  to  suggest  the  best 
mode  of  framing  the  law  they  wish  him  to  propose. 

XX. 

This  demand  can  be  made  by  either  of  the  Chambers ; 
but,  after  having  passed  a  special  committee,  it  shall  not 
be  forwarded  to  the  other  Chamber  under  the  space  of 
ten  days. 

(Articles  XIX.  and  XX.  are  suppressed  in  the  new 
charter.) 

XXI.  XVII. 

If  a  proposition  is  adopted  If  the  proposition  of  a 
by  the  other  Chamber,  it  law  has  been  rejected  by 
will  be  submitted  to  the  either  of  the  three  powers. 
King  ;  if  it  is  rejected,  it  it  cannot  be  again  pre- 
cannot  agam  be  brought  sented  during  the  same 
forward  the  same  sessions,    sessions. 

XXII. 

The  King  ratifies  and  promulgates  the  laws. 

XXIII. 

The  civil  list  is  fixed  for  the  whole  reign  by  the  first 
legislative  sitting  that  is  held  after  the  accession. 

XXIV. 
The  Chamber  of  Peers  is  an  essential  portion  of  the 
legislative  power. 

K3 


226 


APPENDIX 


XXV. 

It  is  convoked  by  the  King  conjointly  with  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies.  The  session  of  both  begins  and 
ends  at  the  same  time. 


XXVI. 

Any  sittings  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Peers,  after  the 
closing  of  the  session  of 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
or  which  have  not  been 
especially  convoked  by  the 
King,  shall  be  held  null  and 
void. 


XXII. 

Any  sittings,  &c.,  null 
and  void,  excepting  when 
assembled  on  the  trials, 
and  then  it  can  only  exer- 
cise judicial  power. 


XXVII. 

The  creation  of  Peers  of  France  belongs  exclusively 
to  the  King.  Their  number  is  unlimited ;  he  can  make 
them  either  for  life  or  hereditary. 

XXVIII. 

Peers  can  take  their  seats  in  the  Chamber  at  twenty- 
five  years  of  age,  but  cannot  speak  or  discuss  until 
thirty  years  of  age. 

XXIX. 

The  Chamber  of  Peers  has  for  president  the  Chan- 
cellor of  France ;  during  his  absence  by  a  Peer  appointed 
by  the  King. 


XXVI. 

The  princes  of  the  blood 
are  Peers  of  France  by 
right  of  birth ;  they  rank 
immediately  after  the  pre- 
sident. 


XXX. 

Members  and  princes 
of  the  blood-royal  are 
Peers  by  right  of  birth,  and 
rank  immediately  after  the 
president,  but  have  no 
voice  in  the  Chamber  be- 
fore the  age  of  twenty-five 
years. 

XXXI. 

The  princes  cannot  take  their  seats  in  the  Chamber 
but  by  order  of  the  King,  given  for  each  session  by  a 
message,  under  pain  of  rendering  null  and  void  all  that 
may  have  been  passed  in  their  presence. — Suppressed. 


APPENDIX.  227 

XXXII.  XXVII. 

The  discussions  in  the  The  sittings  of  the 
Chamber  of  Peers  are  Chamber  of  Peers  are 
secret.  public,  like  those  of  the 

Deputies. 

XXXIII. 
To  the  Chamber  of  Peers  belongs  the  right  of  prose- 
cution for  high- treason,  or  for  state-offences,  according 
to  law. 

XXXIV. 
No  Peer  can  be  arrested  but  by  order  of  the  Chamber, 
and  be  judged  by  the  same  in  criminal  matters. 

XXXV. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  to  be  elected  by  the  elec- 
toral colleges,  which  shall  be  organized  according  to 
the  law. 

XXXVI 

Each  department  to  have  the  same  number  of  Depu- 
ties that  it  has  had  until  the  present  time. — Suppressed. 

XXXVII.  XXXI. 

The     Deputies     to    be  The  Deputies  are  elected 

elected  for  five  years,  and  for  the  space  of  five  years, 
in  such  a  manner  that  the 
Chamber  be   reinforced  a 
fifth  every  year.* 

XXXVIII.  XXXII. 

No  Deputy  can  take  his  No  Deputy  can  take  his 

seat  in  the  Chamber  if  he  seat  in  the  Chamber  if  he 

is  under  forty  years  of  age,  is  under  thirty  years    of 

and  if  he  does  not  pay  di-  age,   and  if   he   does  not 

rect  taxes  to  the  amount  unite  all  the  other  requi- 

of  1000  fr.  sitions    acconiling    to  the 

law. 

XXXIX.  XXXIIl. 

If,    nevertheless,    there        If,    nevertheless,    there 

*  The  Chamber  sits  seven  years,  unless  dissolved  by  the  King. — 
Law  of  the  9th  of  June,  1824. 


228 


APPENDIX. 


should  not  be  found  in  the 
department  fifty  individ- 
uals of  the  prescribed  age, 
and  paying  direct  taxes  of 
1000  fr.,  their  number  may 
be  completed  by  the  next 
highest  taxed  below  the 
1000  francs,  and  these  can 
be  elected  with  the  con- 
currence of  the  first. 

XL. 

Electors  have  no  right  to 
vote  for  the  election  of 
Deputies  if  they  pay  less 
than  300  francs  direct 
taxes,  and  are  under  thirty 
years  of  age. 

XLI. 

Presidents  of  the  "  Col- 
leges electoraux"  to  be 
named  by  the  King,  and 
be  by  right  a  member  of 
the  college. 

XLII. 

Half  at  least  of  the  Deputies  to  be  chosen  from 
among  the  eligibles  who  have  their  political  dwelling 
m  the  department. 


should  not  be  found  in  the 
department  fifty  individ- 
uals of  the  prescribed  age 
and  eligibility,  according  to 
law,  their  number  may  be 
completed  by  the  next  high- 
est taxed  below  them,  &c. 


XXXIV. 

No  person  is  an  elector 
under  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  and  uniting  all  other 
requisites  fixed  by  the  law. 


XXXV. 

Presidents  of  the  "  Col- 
leges electoraux"  shall  be 
chosen  by  the  electors. 


XLIII. 

The  President  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  to  be 
chosen  by  the  King  from  a 
list  of  five  members  pres- 
ented by  the  Chamber. 


XXXVII. 

The  President  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  to  be 
elected  by  the  Chamber  at 
the  commencement  of  each 
session. 


XLIV. 

The  sittings  of  the  Chamber  shall  be  public  ;  but  the 
demand  of  five  members  suflEices  to  form  it  into  a  secret 
committee. 

XLV. 

The  Chamber  divides  itself  into  sections,  in  order  to 
discuss  the  propositions  made  by  the  King. 


APP£fiDIX.  229 

XLVI. 
No  alteration  can  be  made  in  a  law,  if  such  has  not 
been  proposed  or  agreed  to  by  the  King,  and  if  it  has 
not  been  sent  to  and  discussed  by  the  sections. — Sup- 
pressed. 

XLVII. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  receives  all  proposals  for 
taxes ;  it  is  not  until  they  have  been  passed  that  they 
can  6e  carried  to  the  Chamber  of  Peers. — Suppressed. 

XLVIII. 

No  tax  can  be  imposed  or  enforced  without  the  con- 
sent of  both  the  Chambers  and  the  sanction  of  the  King. 

XLIX. 

The  manorial  tax  is  to  be  granted  only  for  a  year 
Indirect  taxes  can  be  imposed  for  several  years. 

L. 

The  King  convokes  the  Chambers  every  year;  he 
prorogues  them,  and  can  dissolve  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies;  but  in  such  a  case  he  must  call  another 
within  the  space  of  three  months. 

LI. 

A  member  of  the  Chamber  cannot  be  arrested  during 
the  sittings,  or  six  weeks  before  and  after  the  sittings. 

LII. 

A  member  of  the  Chamber  cannot  be  arrested  for  any 
criminal  offence  during  the  sittings,  unless  it  be  of  a 
flagrant  nature,  and  then  only  with  the  consent  of  the 
Chamber. 

LIU 

Any  petition  to  either  of  the  Chambers  must  be  made 
in  and  presented  in  writing ;  the  law  forbids  any  peti- 
tion being  presented  personally  at  the  bar  of  the 
Chamber. 

LIV. 

Ministers  can  be  members  of  either  Chamber  ;  they 
have  the  right  to  enter  both  the  Chambers,  and  be  heard 
when  they  demand  it. 

20 


230 


APPENDIX. 


LV. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  has  the  right  to  impeach 
the  ministers,  and  to  have  them  tried  by  the  Chamber 
of  Peers,  which  alone  has  the  privilege  of  judging. 

LVI. 

They  can  only  be  impeached  for  high-treason  or  em- 
bezzlement. Special  laws  are  provided  for  the  prose- 
cution of  such  crimes. — Suppressed. 

Articles  LVII.  to  LXII.  the  same  as  Articles  XLVHI. 
to  LIII. 


LIV 

There  cannot,  in  conse 
quence,  be  appointed  any 
special  commissions  or 
special  sittings  of  Courts 
of  Law,  under  any  title  or 
pretence  whatever. 


LXIII. 

There  cannot,  conse- 
quently, be  appointed  any 
commissions  and  "  tribu- 
naux  extraordinaire,"  But 
the  naming  of  the  provost's 
jurisdiction  is  not  included 
under  this  denomination — 
if  their  re-establishment  is 
deemed  necessary. 

Articles  LXIV.  to  LXXII.  the  same  as  Articles  LV. 
to  LXIIL 

LXXIII. 

The  Colonies  to  be  governed  by  special  laws  and 
regulations. 


LXXIV. 

The  King  and  his  suc- 
cessors at  their  coronation 
shall  swear  faithfully  to 
observe  the  present  con- 
stitutional Charter. 


LXV. 

The  King  and  his  suc- 
cessors on  their  accession 
shall  swear  before  the 
united  Chambers  to  faith- 
fully observe  the  constitu- 
tional Charter. 


LXXV. 

The  Deputies  of  France,  after  a  dissolution,  to  retain 
their  seats  until  they  are  replaced. — Suppressed. 

LXXVL 

The  first  renewal  of  a  fifteenth  of  the  Chamber  to 
date  not  earlier  than  the  year  1816. — Suppressed. 


APPENDIX.  231 

The  following  belong  to  the  New  Charta  only. 

LXVI. 

The  present  Charta  and  its  privileges  are  confided  to 
the  patriotism  and  courage  of  the  national  guards,  and 
the  citizens  of  France. 

LXVII 
France  reassumes  her  colours,  and  for  the  future  no 
other  cockade  shall  be  worn  than  the  tri-coloured  cockade. 

Special  Provisions. 

LXVIII. 

All  appointments  and  creation  of  Peers  made  during 
the  reign  of  Charles  X.  declared  to  be  null  and  void. 

LXIX. 

Separate  laws,  to  be  provided  for  the  following 
objects  with  as  little  delay  as  possible  : — 

1.  Use  of  Jury  to  crimes  of  the  press,  and  political 
offences. 

2.  The  responsibility  of  ministers  and  other  agents 
of  power. 

3.  The  re-election  of  Deputies  and  public  functiona- 
ries who  receive  salaries. 

4.  Annual  vote  for  the  contingencies  of  the  army. 

5.  Organization  of  the  national  guards,  with  the  inter- 
vention of  the  said  guards  in  the  choice  of  their  officers. 

6.  Arrangements  which  shall  establish  by  law  the 
state  of  officers  of  all  ranks  in  the  army  and  the  navy. 

7.  Municipal  provincial  institutions  founded  on  an 
elective  system. 

8.  Public  instruction,  and  liberty  to  teach. 

9.  Abolition  of  the  double  vote,  and  fixing  conditions 
as  to  election  and  eligibility. 

LXX. 

All  laws  and  ordonnances  contrary  to  the  present  re- 
form of  the  Charter  are  from  the  present  declared  null 
and  void. 

Vol.  II.  page  131. 
Mr.  T.  Detray,  in  his  list  of   cities  and  towns  in 
France  (those  of  the  department  of  the  Seine  excepted), 
gives — 196  cities  and  towns  possessing  public  libraries. 


232  APPENDIX. 

containing  between  two  to  three  millions  of  volumes, 
which,  on  a  population  of  32,000,000  souls,  gives  a  pro- 
portion of  one  volume  to  every  fifteen  inhabitants.  Paris, 
on  the  contrary,  as  I  have  said,  has  five  public  libraries, 
containing  1,378,000  volumes,  or  three  volumes  to  every 
two  inhabitants,  the  capital  containing  774,000  souls. 

The  number  of  works  published  in  1833  may  be  thus 
divided,  i.  e. — 

Poems,  songs,  incidental  pieces,  and  irregular  verse, 
275. 

Science,  medicine,  law,  natural  history  in  all  its  va- 
rieties, political  economy,  532. 

Novels,  tales,  translated  novels,  fabulous  legends,  and 
traditions,  works  of  imagination,  355. 

History,  facts,  private  and  local  narratives,  disputa- 
tions, sketches  of  history,  213. 

Philosophy,  metaphysics,  morals,  theories,  102. 

Fine  arts,  travels  and  voyages,  170. 

Devotion,  theology,  mystical  history,  235. 

Theatre  :  pieces  in  verse  and  prose,  performed  or  not 
performed,  179. 

Lastly,  pamphlets,  libels,  prospectuses,  legal  claims, 
pleadings,  speeches,  flights  of  fancy,  unstamped  publi- 
cations, 4346. 

Total  number  of  works  published,  7011. 

There  are  in  Paris  seventy-six  newspapers  and  peri- 
odicals connected  with  literature  ;  and  in  this  number 
are  not  included  the  manuals  published  by  the  different 
professions. 

List  of  the  various  literary  establishments  in  Paris, 
having  for  their  object  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
of  several    kinds  among   the   different  classes  of 

SOCIETY. 

Bibliothcques. — Royale ;  de  I'Arsenal ;  Mazarine ;  Saint 
Genevieve. 

Museum^  d'Histoire  naturelles  Jardin  des  plantes. 
Composition  des  Tableaux  et  dessin  ;  au  Louvre  pour  les 
auteurs  decedes ;  au  Luxembourg  pour  les  auteurs 
vivans. 

Musees,  des  Antiques  ;  de  I'Artillerie ;  cours  d'Archio- 
logie  ;  Conservatoire  de  rausique ;  Societe  des  amis  des 
Arts. 

Ecolesy  des  laiigues  Orientales  vivantes,  annexee  au 


APPENDIX.  233 

college  par  Louis  le  Grand  des  Chartes ;  Poly  technique ; 
Militaire;  speciale  de  Pharmacie  des  Longitudes;  de 
Theologie  ;  de  Droit ;  de  Medicine,  des  sciences  et  des 
lettres ;  Normale  (for  the  instruction  of  professors)  des 
Mines-des  Ponts  et  chaussees  ;  de  Peinture  ;  de  Dessin, 
de  Architecture  ;  Nation  ;  de  I'Equitation  ;  Trois  spe- 
ciales  du  Commerce  ;  centrale  des  Arts  et  Manufa^^ture  ; 
de  Commerce  et  des  arts  industriels  ;  Academic  Royale 
de  Medecine. 

Colleges. — Britanniques,  Irlandaisse,  Ecossaise,  et 
Anglaise  (founded  in  Paris  for  young  Catholics,  of  the 
three  kingdoms,  who  wished  to  be  educated  in  France) ; 
de  France  ;  Bourbon,  700  in-door  pupils ;  Charlemagne, 
8  to  900  out-door  pupils ;  Henry  IV.,  772  in  and  out- 
door pupils  ;  Louis  le  Grand,  924  in  and  out-door  pupils ; 
Saint  Louis,  850  in  and  out-door  pupils;  de  Flndustrie; 
Stanislas  et  Rollin,  550  in-door  pupils  (both  of  these  are 
private) ;  Concours  d'Agregation  (no  one  can  be  ap- 
pointed a  professor  to  any  Royal  College  without  hav- 
ing first  obtained  the  title  of  '*  Agrege"  at  the  Concours) ; 
cours  Normal. 

Societies. — Universelle  de  la  civilissation ;  libre  des 
beaux  Arts ;  Geologique  de  France ;  Nationelle  pour 
I'Eraancipation  intellectuelle ;  des  Sciences  Physique, 
Chimique,  et  Arts  ;  Agricole  et  industriele  de  Medicine 
pratique ;  de  Medicine  de  Paris ;  de  Pharmacie ;  de 
Geographie  ;  pour  I'Instruction  elementaire,  Grammati- 
cale  ;  des  Bons  livres ;  de  Statistique  Universelle  ;  de 
la  Morale  Chretienne  ;  Medico  Philantropique  ;  Medicale 
d'Emulation ;  de  Chimie  Medicale  ;  d'Encouragement 
pour  rindustrie  Nationale  ;  des  Antiquaires  de  France  ; 
Phrenologique ;  Athenee  des  Arts ;  de  Medicine  de 
Paris ;  I'Athenee ;  Conservatoire ;  des  Arts  et  des 
Metiers ;  Exposition  des  produites  de  Tlndustrie  ;  Asso- 
ciation libre  pour  I'Education  du  Peuple. 


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